


Fantastic Beasts (and Where to Find Them)

by agentverbivore (verbivore8642)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Alternate Universe - Wizards, Dark Magic, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Kissing, Legilimens, Magic, Muggle/Wizard Relations, Obliviation, POV Jemma Simmons, POV Leo Fitz, POV Multiple, Role Reversal, Sunsets, What Happened in Bahrain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-09-12 07:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9063205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbivore8642/pseuds/agentverbivore
Summary: The year is 1926 when world-renowned magizoologist Jemma Simmons arrives in New York to complete the last leg of her research tour. But when she runs into former classmate Leopold Fitz, she finds herself ensnared in a battle against encroaching dark forces. Simmons isn’t sure which has captured her attention more: The danger faced by the muggles and wizards of New York, or the intrigue of the Scottish ex-Auror with a personal vendetta against the anti-magic activists.
  
    A wizarding world AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [awwcoffeenooooo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/awwcoffeenooooo/gifts).



> _Merry Christmas **whentheskyequakes** , from your Secret Santa! I know this isn't quite the prompt you started out with, but I hope you enjoy this fic anyway!! I'm terribly sorry it's taken me so long to finish the rest, but I'll be posting the rest regularly now._
> 
> A huge thanks to my beta MK, who was particularly instrumental in me figuring out the puzzle of Fitz's (and Skye's) education.
> 
> The goal, as always, is to make this fic stand alone without needing the source material, but I think it would be improved by having seen the first Fantastic Beasts movie - besides, it's a fun watch. :-)
> 
> That being said, since it's a movie AU, dialogue from the film will be sprinkled throughout, and obviously none of that was of my invention.
> 
> The rating is due mostly to the dark themes of the movie itself (such as the child abuse), some magical violence, and a little bit of kissing later on.

Coal haze clung to the rooftops of Manhattan, resistant even to the strong, late-autumn breeze whipping aside the frayed edges of street urchins’ coats. Donnie Gill – sallow cheeked and bone-thin – squinted in the sun’s last rays of light. 

“If you see anything,” called out the tall, dark-haired man at the head of the soup line, “make sure to tell us! Magic is real, and they’ll come for you!” Ian Quinn stared imperiously down at Donnie as he passed a bowl of soup to the shivering girl at the head of the line. “Don’t forget your pamphlets.”

The girl nodded gratefully, and took the bowl and papers in hand. 

Something dark twitched across the streetlamp at the corner, and Donnie flinched. Tonight would not be the first time he heard screams haunt the alleyways of midtown, and he feared that it would not be the last. Quinn smacked his arm, and Donnie realized that the head of the New Salem Philanthropic Society (and his adopted father) had been speaking to him. With an apologetic hunch of his shoulders, Donnie reached for the proffered bowl and reached his ladle into the cauldron of soup.

An indescribable feeling – that he had felt a hundred times before, that he didn’t dare name – rose to the back of his throat, and Donnie pushed it viciously down. 

\------ 

On the docks of the Hudson River, Grant Ward squinted at the first glimpse of a new moon from behind the thick clouds that had hung over the city all week. Next to him, muggle detectives clambered through a ruined factory, oblivious to his presence or to the traces of magic that he’d tracked here from midtown. He tugged at the collar of his coat, bracing himself against the chilled wind. With an absent tap at his hip, he reassured himself that his concealed wand holster was still in place.

Beneath his feet, the cobblestones shivered, and he crouched to rest one hand against the ground as he reached for his wand with the other. 

With a loud screech, something blacker than the night sky erupted from the center of the street, spinning into the air and sending rubble crashing down onto the muggle rubberneckers and investigators alike. 

Ward stumbled backwards, raising one arm to shield himself from the debris, and watched as the creature of bone and darkness sped crying down the street and out of sight. His jaw clenched as he lowered his wand, and he ignored the muggle chaos that whirled around him. It wouldn’t be long before the muggles couldn’t explain away these horrors as gas line malfunctions.

\------

Blue skies stretched for as far as the eye could see and wave tufts sparkled in the sun against the steel sides of the ocean liner. Jemma Simmons grabbed onto the ship’s port side bannister, a breathless grin spreading across her face when she caught a full glimpse of the Statue of Liberty herself. Her copper torch held high, Lady Liberty made for a welcoming spectacle reminiscent of the pharaonic temples in Egypt, and Jemma couldn’t help the butterflies of awe that swept through her stomach.

“Oh, Doogle,” she whispered, squeezing her left hand hard around the handle of her suitcase. “She is _amazing_. I wish you could see this!”

A flash of green beneath her coat collar caught her eye, and she looked away from the approaching Manhattan skyline to see the bowtruckle emerging from his hiding place. 

“Now, don’t you start.” She gently tucked him into her coat’s breast pocket, glancing worriedly around to make sure no nearby muggles had spotted him. “Come on, Picket, you know you can’t be out here. I told you, we have to lay low while in America.” 

That settled, Jemma turned once again to the glorious statue of green as the ship passed slowly into her shadow. Its odd customs concerning wizard-muggle relations aside, she had always wanted to visit America, and the final touches of research for her book were the perfect excuse – as was returning Frank, a thunderbird, to his native wilds of Arizona. 

Her case made a brief but violet shiver, and she sighed, lifting it up to give it a sharp glare. “Don’t make me come in there.”

\------

Hovering along the edges of the crowd on the steps of the New York city bank, Leo Fitz took a large bite of his hot dog. If he was going to spend his lunch hour tagging along behind the Second Salemers, at least their first stop had been by the city’s best hot dog stand. 

As he munched on his bite of sandwich, sauerkraut, and mustard, he squinted at the reprehensible group’s proselytizing leader. Quinn’s voice droned on and on, loud enough to attract new listeners but confusing enough that most of the muggles present were just looking for a way to escape. In the midst of the crowd, a tall man with dark skin drew Fitz’s eye as he collided with a petite brunette. The two of them apologized to each other, and the man handed the woman the case she seemed to have dropped. As she turned to proceed up the bank’s steps, however, Fitz fumbled the second half of his hot dog, just barely keeping it from falling to the ground in his shock.

There, in the center of a crowd of anti-magic protesters, was Jemma Simmons, the brilliant witch with whom he’d attended one year of school and then believed he’d never see again. Yet here she was – there was no mistaking that face, even fifteen years later. Distracted from his observation of Quinn, Fitz watched as she tried to politely sidestep the Second Salemer to proceed into the building.

A look of panic crossed her expression, and she darted quickly around Quinn without answering his question. Frowning, Fitz dumped the rest of his hot dog into a nearby trashcan and quickly climbed the steps in chase of Simmons. Above anything the Second Salemers had ever said, Jemma Simmons was certainly more important than his lunch. 

\------

Jemma swore under her breath as she banged her head against the bottom of the desk beneath which she had just chased her wayward niffler. The sneaky little beast had just escaped her yet again, clinging to the purse strap of a wealthy, bejeweled New Yorker as she strode through the bank lobby.

Grumbling, Jemma crawled back out from beneath the table and stood up – only to walk smack into someone else.

“Whoa there,” said a familiar voice, and she stepped away to meet the eyes of the handsome African-American muggle she’d crashed into in the crowd outside. “You’re making a habit of this.” 

“Oh dear,” she said, grabbing for her case before it could be trampled by other bank customers and resting it on a nearby bench. “I’m terribly sorry, it’s my first day in New York, you see, and it’s....”

“Kinda overwhelming?” The muggle gave her a kind smile, and she returned one of her own. 

“Yes, you could say that.” She squinted into the crowd, looking for a flash of black or low-moving gold. Her new companion folded himself onto the bench next to her, putting his own suitcase between his feet.

“What’re you here for?”

Distracted as she was, it took a moment for Jemma to process his question. “The same thing as you, I expect.” 

“You’re here to ask for a loan to start your own bakery?” Jemma blinked, and turned to see him giving her a wry grin. “Small world.”

“I –” Before she could say anything else, Jemma spotted a small, furry creature sprinting along the top of a banister, a gold chain streaming behind it. With a small noise of triumph, she grabbed her case and dove back into the crowd, following behind the escaped niffler as fast as her legs could carry her.

\------

Fitz stared, open-mouthed, at the silver egg that wobbled on the bench in place of the suitcase that Simmons had just run off with. The muggle to whom she had been speaking called after her when he spotted the egg, but she was long gone. As he was about to reach for it, however, the bank manager called out: “Antoine Triplett!” He snapped to attention and shot to his feet, picking up his own case and abandoning the silver oddity on the bench.

With a few quick strides, Fitz snatched up the egg himself, only glancing briefly at it before he tucked it into a coat pocket. Having been a wizard his whole life and a Ravenclaw to boot, he’d studied stranger things than this egg, but curiosity needled at him anyway. Pushing down his now fervent interest to examine the object rocking back and forth in his pocket, he returned to scouring the crowd for Simmons. In addition to his own curiosity about her visit to New York, it seemed that she was determined to break as many MACUSA laws as she could, and _that_ gave him a real reason to ferret her out.

\------ 

Panting as she ducked around another column, Jemma mentally cursed herself for not having better secured the niffler in his habitat. In her peripheral vision, she saw the niffler’s black tail disappear around a corner and jumped into motion, skidding slightly on the marble floor as she went. The case dropped hard onto the floor when she caught herself on a nearby column, the lid popping briefly open. With a sharp lunge, she managed to shut it again almost instantly, scrambling forward after the niffler. 

To her horror, once she rounded the column she had to watch from the opposite side of an iron fence as a cart filled with various shiny valuables was pushed into an elevator... with the niffler crawling inside a sack on the bottom shelf, barely out of sight of the muggle guards.

“Hey!”

Jemma whipped her head around at the words of the muggle she’d bumped into before. A couple feet away, he waved something in her direction, and a dart of horror went through her at the sight of the vial of blue liquid he held. It contained all of the venom she’d managed to milk from her hard-caught swooping evil, and if she lost it, it would take her months to replace. And its accidental release might result in him or other muggles experiencing sudden bouts of memory loss.

Giving one last, longing glance at the elevator doors as they hid the niffler from view, Jemma made a frustrated noise, gave her foot a small stomp, and turned around to whip her wand in the handsome, black muggle’s direction. He let out a startled shout as he found himself speeding straight towards Jemma without any control of his movements. Once he’d crashed into her, she wrapped her arms around his waist, trapping his arms at his sides, and apparated them out of the bank’s lobby.

\------ 

Fitz’s mouth fell open as he watched Simmons apparate away with the muggle in potential plain view of dozens of other muggles. It took him a few seconds to look around and ascertain that, fortunately, no one else had noticed. That behavior nonetheless struck him as very un-Simmons-like, based on what he knew about her from their Hogwarts days. Back then, she’d been a stickler for the rules from her head to her toes, and he couldn’t quite fathom what had happened in the intervening fifteen years to change her so determinedly. A part of him itched to find out, but most of him was terrified that her current shenanigans would manage to out the entire wizarding community to the American muggles, a potential catastrophe of epic proportions.

With a subtle wave of his wand from inside his coat, he set a detection spell that would alert him if she reappeared within 200 feet of him. The spell wasn’t perfect, but since he wasn’t sure where she’d gone – and he could only hope it was somewhere in the building – that would have to do for now. As he strode calmly outside, giving the muggle guard a cursory nod, he wondered if the silver egg in his pocket might allow him to track her down rather than require him to wait.

Peering out over the bank’s high, marble steps, Fitz began to look for a private nook that would allow him to give the egg a closer inspection away from prying muggle (and Second Salemer) eyes.

\------ 

Busy carefully storing the vial of swooping evil venom back in her suitcase, Jemma didn’t give the bank manager or her pseudo-kidnap victim a second glance.

“Is he okay?” The muggle had taken a few halting steps towards the petrified manager where he lay on the floor, not paying her much attention.

“Oh, yes, quite,” she answered blithely, stepping through the _alohomora_ ’d vault door and letting out a heavy sigh at the damage the niffler had already managed to cause. “Although I should probably....” Flicking her wand in the bank manager’s direction, she incanted: “ _Obliviate_.”

The bank manager immediately ceased his angry, fruitless muttering, and the muggle stumbled a few feet back. “What...?”

“My name’s Jemma Simmons,” she called behind her, making a fast grab for the niffler and letting out a noise of triumph when her fingers closed around his furry arms. “What’s yours?” 

“Ah, friends call me Trip,” he answered, clearly distracted as he continued to try to process the apparent existence of magic. “How did you... what _is_ that thing?”

“A niffler.” For a few moments, she had to pause speaking as the sound of coins falling out of the overturned niffler’s bottomless pouch would have drowned out her words. Giving the beast a good shake to make sure that he’d dropped the last of his stolen goods, she let out a small _tsk_. “Not bad little creatures, but terribly incorrigible. I think this might be a record for him.” 

The sound of approaching bank guards drew her attention, and she stepped quickly back through the vault door towards Trip. Confusion over the locking spell she’d tossed at the basement door just after their apparation gave her just enough time to open her case and shove the niffler into it, along with a muttered warning about giving him a serious time-out if he tried anything like this again. 

“Shit,” Trip muttered, staring down the hall at where guard boots had just become visible. He didn’t notice as Jemma reached for his case as well as hers before reaching for his hand and closing her fingers tightly around it. With a small _pop_ , she apparated them both back out of the vault and outside the building.

As they reappeared, however, Jemma lost her balance thanks to holding both cases, and the two of them went crashing down onto the crowded sidewalk. Fortunately, the surrounding muggles didn’t notice their sudden appearance, with everyone now frantically trying to speed away from the bank, its alarms blaring through the doors and into the street. By the time she managed to scramble to her feet, discreetly shoving her wand into its holster as she went, the muggle beside her had disappeared. Swearing, she turned towards the crowd only to glimpse the top of Trip’s head as he sped away from her as fast as he could go without drawing attention to himself.

Giving her navy coat a good brush-down, Jemma tried to look as nonchalant as possible when she picked up her case and began to stride determinedly in the same direction as her wayward muggle. Even if Trip – whatever his full name might be – seemed like a nice person, it was still law that she had to obliviate him of all memory of both herself and magic. Were she to let him escape now, that would become nearly impossible to do.

Suddenly, she felt a sharp tug on her arm, and the distinct compressing sensation of apparation overcame her. When Jemma reappeared, feet hitting hard onto the concrete behind a wide bank column, she found her gaze fixated on a pair of striking blue eyes.

“What the hell’re you doing with a _niffler_ in New York?” hissed the apparently Scottish owner of said eyes, and she blinked as she tried to figure out who had just accosted her and apparated her around the other side of the bank’s building. The wizard was quite handsome – although in a very different way than the muggle who had just escaped her care – with sandy, curly hair and a scruffy jawline, and he was just about her height. What caught her attention, however, in addition to the strangeness of hearing a Scottish accent on this side of the Atlantic, was that something familiar hung about his face, although she couldn’t quite place it. 

“I’m just passing through,” she explained, standing her case at her feet, “on my way to Arizona.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” the wizard griped. “Magical creatures are banned in the Americas, surely _you_ knew that. Why in the hell’d you let it loose?”

Something about the way he emphasized the “you” made her narrow her eyes, but before she could question him, she noticed something that made her lips quirk up in amusement. “You’ve got mustard on your lip, did you know? Just there.”

The wizard crooked his arm to wipe his mouth hurriedly on his jacket sleeve, and all of a sudden Jemma was transported back to her first year at Hogwarts. In particular, back to nights spent in the Great Hall grouped with peers of her age, when she often watched the eleven-year-old boy two seats down and across the table lose his napkin (when it was magicked away by older Ravenclaw tormentors) and resort to scrubbing his mouth with the sleeve of his robe.

“Good lord,” she breathed, meeting his eyes again as he finished removing the mustard from his upper lip. “Leopold Fitz.”

He had been her bitter rival for one year at Hogwarts, constantly working to one-up each other in all their classes even though they barely spoke a word to each other. His competitiveness aside, he was still clearly the smartest person there, and she had spent much of her time as his classmate feeling quite curious about him. At the end of the year, much to Jemma’s mingled apprehension and intrigue, they had been assigned as Potions partners for the coming second year of their wizarding education. When September arrived, however, Fitz had disappeared from the Hogwarts register and she was assigned a new partner. Milton was neither as brilliant nor as interesting as Fitz, but Jemma had made do (and managed to get top marks in Potions that and every following year to boot). A niggling of regret about the lost partnership had bothered her ever since, and running into him in a completely different country seemed almost too fortunate to be believed.

A flush tinged Fitz’s ears pink at the sound of his name, and he cleared his throat. “Simmons.” They stared mutely at each other for a few seconds, and she couldn’t quite stop a smile from spreading across her face. “You didn’t answer my question." 

Blinking, she tried to reign herself back in from all the questions she had about what he was doing here. “The niffler? I didn’t mean to let him out – he’s incorrigible, you see, anything shiny, and he’s –”

“You couldn’t have chosen a worse time for it,” he muttered, peering behind her at the chattering muggles as they passed by. “New York’s been on edge for weeks already, and if something like that –” 

“But it didn’t,” she automatically countered, “I snapped him up, and no one’s the wiser.” Just to emphasize her point, she tapped lightly at the side of her case with her foot. 

Fitz gave her a weary look. “So, you took care of the muggle, then?” Jemma’s face fell, and his expression faded from droll to worried. “Didn’t you?”

“Ah,” she said, a blush warming her cheeks, “not exactly. He... well, he escaped in the crowd. But he seemed very nice, so I’m sure it won’t....” She trailed off at Fitz’s heavy sigh.

“I’m sorry, Simmons, but I have to take you in. That’s a section 3A.”

“Take me in where?” In response, Fitz dug around in his coat’s inner pockets and then pulled out a billfold, which he flipped open to reveal an identification card. Jemma’s expression lit up; she’d always been terribly curious about the American wizarding community, Fitz’s obvious Scottish heritage aside. “Oh, you work for MACUSA! Are you an investigator?”

He hesitated, and then shoved the wallet back into his coat’s inner pocket. “Yeah, I am. That. A very important one. So, c’mon.” 

When he reached his hand out for hers, however, Jemma wrinkled her nose and took a step away. “Does it have to be now? I actually have things to do –”

“Yeah, now,” Fitz said, grabbing firmly onto her hand and reaching into his coat for his wand. “You’ll have to see to ‘em later.”

With that, Jemma felt herself being sucked into an apparition spell again, and together they disappeared from the chaos reigning outside the New York city bank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life is crazy rn, so this'll be on quite a bit of a hiatus while I get my life back on track post-travels/holidays, and then get cracking on writing this as fast as physically possible. Many apologies again for the delay, but, as ever, I promise to always finish what I start on AO3. :-)


	2. Chapter 2

Despite the nearly fifteen years between and whole different continent beneath their feet, Fitz was drily gratified that at least some things about Simmons hadn’t changed a whit. After he apparated them around the corner from the Woolworth Building – which housed MACUSA headquarters – she proceeded to pester him with question after question, about the regulation he had cited, about American laws regarding magical creatures, and even about the choice of this location for the New York branch of the American wizarding community’s governing body. In addition to being the smartest person at Hogwarts, Simmons had also always been the first person in the classroom with her hand in the air, not just to answer questions, but to ask them. While they waited for a small muggle crowd to clear the sidewalk in front of them, he was able to give her a quick, terse explanation of the decision to have a satellite MACUSA office near the country’s most prominent immigration point.

Once inside the wizarding headquarters, however, Fitz clammed up to give himself time to concentrate on inventing a good reason for him to barge into Coulson’s office with something as seemingly insignificant as a Section 3A. He felt instinctively that his former boss would want to speak to Simmons about whatever was in her case; Fitz just wasn’t sure how to tell him that without seeming like he was trying to angle for his previous job back. (Not that he would mind that outcome, but it wasn’t his primary priority in introducing Simmons to Coulson.) 

His silence notwithstanding, Simmons continued to follow behind him, blithely peppering him with questions and observations as they went through the grand, art deco halls of MACUSA’s main foyer and its intricate wrought iron lifts. It was exceedingly difficult for him to remain professionally quiet; his lips kept fighting to twitch up in a smile, and that simply would not do. This was his first time seeing Simmons as an adult (she’d even remembered him from their Ravenclaw days, much to his surprise), and he couldn’t afford to mess up his second chance at the right first impression. 

When Fitz finally led them around the corner into the WIELD (Wizarding Intelligence and Enforcement Logistics Division) Auror annex, however, he stopped short, causing Simmons to walk straight into his back. He made a jerky movement with his right hand to forestall her questioning, completely thrown by the sight of the MACUSA President standing in the middle of the virtually empty office, toe-to-toe with his former boss. 

“The International Confederation is threatening to send a delegation,” Nick Fury bit out, talking over whatever Coulson had been saying previously. 

The head Auror sighed. Next to Fury stood his chief of staff, Maria Hill, who was intently reading a letter that took up at least three feet of parchment. Behind her was Grant Ward, another New York-based Auror, who was reading over Hill’s shoulder. 

“The double threat of Grindlewald and Garrett on the loose scares them,” Coulson said, halting as Ward interrupted. 

“I was there.” Everyone turned to Ward as he straightened and crossed his arms, giving his head a disbelieving shake. “This is a beast. No human could do what this thing is capable of, President Fury.” 

The room descended into silence, and Fitz could feel Simmons shift around his shoulder, trying to peer into the room. He knew he should leave immediately, but no one had noticed their abrupt entrance and he didn’t want to bring any attention to them now. As it was, he was risking severe disciplinary measures just by being in the same room as this discussion.

“Whatever it is,” Fury said at last, clasping his hands behind his back, “one thing’s clear. It has to be stopped. It’s terrorizing no-majs, and when no-majs are scared, they attack. This could mean war.”

Slowly, Fitz tried to back up and encourage Simmons to go quietly with him, but he bumped into her case and the bloody thing went crashing to the floor, causing everyone to turn towards them. Fitz winced.

Upon seeing the source of the noise, Coulson frowned. “Fitz, we talked about this.”

Realizing that the game was up, Fitz squared his shoulders and took a step forward. “I know, sir, but –”

“You’re not an Auror anymore,” Coulson said, as gently as possible considering the circumstances, and Fitz determinedly did not look over at where Simmons had tilted her head towards him in surprise.

“No, sir, but there’s been a minor incident, and –”  

“This office is currently busy with very major incidents,” snapped Fury. “Whatever it is, it’ll have to wait.”

“But –”

“Go.” Fury turned back towards the others, clearly done with the conversation.

Desperate to salvage the situation, and his ego, Fitz threw a pleading look at first Coulson and then Ward, two of the few wizards who had defended him during his hearing. But Ward didn’t even meet his eyes, and Coulson just gave him a grim headshake. 

Clenching his jaw, Fitz gave them a stiff nod. “Yes, Mr. President.”  

Then he turned and strode out of the room without another word, assuming that Simmons would follow him but unable to bring himself to see the look on her face. So much for making a better first impression. 

 

\------

 

Somehow, Jemma thought as she followed Fitz into a dingy, basement office within the depths of MACUSA, he had become even more interesting as an adult than he had been as a child. A Scottish wizard expat in America, who had at one point been some kind of Auror but was no longer, and was now pretending to be an investigator. She guessed that he’d given up on taking her in for her infraction regarding not obliviating the muggle at the bank, and yet she was inclined to keep following him anyway. Too many questions remained for her to even consider leaving now. 

Not giving her a second glance, Fitz stopped his angry stride next to a desk over which hung an ancient wooden sign that declared: _Wand Permit Office._

Throwing his coat over the back of the sunken chair, he let out a low noise of frustration. When he finally glanced her way, he reached immediately for the enormous, leather-bound register on his desk.

“So, you have your wand permit? Every foreign wizard needs one in America.” 

Jemma narrowed her eyes. “Why didn’t you ask me that at the bank?” 

Fitz blinked and looked directly up at her with his lips parted in evident befuddlement. “I... forgot?” 

“You forgot your job?” 

Face clouding in anger, he dropped his eyes to the register and slammed it open. “Still a bit new at it.” 

“Hey buddy,” came a deep voice from behind Jemma, and she spun around to see a tall, tan-skinned man ambling down the aisle in their direction. “Looked for you at lunch to see if you wanted to head to that deli Bobbi mentioned, where’d you go?” 

He glanced curiously at Jemma as he approached, and she observed once he drew even that her head barely reached his pectoral muscles. Either he had Giant blood in his distant ancestry, or Americans really were just that much taller than wizards on the other side of the pond. 

“Sorry,” Fitz muttered, keeping his eyes trained on the book as he flipped its pages. “Went out.”

The other man’s eyes narrowed, and then his eyebrows raised as a thought occurred to him. “Aw, c’mon, man. Don’t tell me you were trackin’ the Second Salemers again.” 

“I wasn’t,” Fitz said, ears reddening slightly as he lied to his colleague or friend. “Went out to get a hot dog at Schultz’s and found Simmons wandering around without a wand permit. Right?” He shot her a significant look, raising his eyebrows.

“Ohhhh,” she said, taking a few seconds too long to catch his meaning, “right, yes. There I was, just – wandering. No permit. Silly me.” Hoping to distract from her lackluster deception skills, she turned to the other man, tilted her head back so she could meet his gaze, and held out her hand. “Jemma Simmons. Pleasure.”

“Mack,” he responded automatically, sticking his hand out to give hers a warm shake, and his eyes widened as he turned back to Fitz. “You’re Jemma Simmons?” 

“Yes,” she answered, nose wrinkling at the surprise and thin layer of amusement that coated his question. 

“ _Your_ Jemma Simmons?” Mack directed at Fitz, whose face now resembled a ripe tomato in color.  

“No,” he hissed, and as Jemma glanced back at him she saw him freeze from where he’d clearly been making a ‘shut up or die’ hand gesture. “Not – nothing. My nothing.” 

“Right, sorry,” Mack said, poorly disguising a grin, “my mistake. Thinking of something else.” His face turned serious, and he crossed his arms. “You know if they catch you with the Second Salemers –”

“I wasn’t –”

“–Again, they’re gonna boot you completely. Coulson won’t be able to cover your ass next time.”

“I know,” Fitz snapped, throwing down his quill and ripping out the duplicate of the form he’d just completed filling out. It took him a few seconds of waving it in Jemma’s direction before she realized he was handing it to her, but she eventually grabbed it and gave him a nod of thanks, shooting a somewhat nervous smile in Mack’s direction.

With a suspicious arch of his eyebrow, Mack sauntered over to a nearby desk piled with dozens of muggle inventions of all shapes, sizes, and materials. 

Intending to store the permit in a theoretically safe place, Jemma swung her case into the center of Fitz’s desk, earning her a low swear and a glare over the top of the leather binding. Just as she was about to give him an innocent smile, footsteps sounded from the entryway.

“What’ve you got, Fitz?” The imposing, dark-haired man who had been in the Auror office strode up next to Jemma. 

“Ward,” Fitz blurted, pushing himself jerkily to his feet.

“This it?” Ward interrupted, reaching out before either Fitz or Jemma could respond and flicking open the case’s clasp. 

Jemma braced for the sound of her creatures to come roaring out of the depths of the case, but she was met with total silence. Confusion spreading across his face, Ward looked from Fitz over to Mack, now at his own desk and pretending not to pay attention. With a swift push, Ward turned the case so that it faced both Fitz and Jemma, and she gasped. Instead of the cavernous entryway of her case, she was greeted by two neatly arranged rows of delicate and delectable-looking pastries.  

“Oh no,” she breathed, looking up to meet Fitz’s abruptly panicked gaze. That could not be good.

 

\------

 

Peering around the brick corner behind whose cover they’d just apparated, Jemma frowned. “Why did you apparate us all the way over here?”  

Thanks to the tracking spell she kept on her case at all times, considering its immeasurable value, it had taken them mere seconds to locate where it now resided with Trip. But to her pique, Fitz had apparated the two of them three blocks from the apartment building rather than taking them straight inside. After all, the muggle’s Harlem flat couldn’t possibly be spelled against apparition like MACUSA. Now it would take them even longer to get there, and from the sounds of the panicked crowd in the street, something had already happened in Trip’s building.  

“This is a muggle neighborhood, Simmons,” he tossed back at her as he strode briskly into the street. “We can’t just go apparating into muggle residential areas on a whim, we hafta be careful.”

“Oh, so apparating into a random alley in a muggle neighborhood is more secure,” she deadpanned. “I see.”

Shooting her another glare, Fitz didn’t respond, continuing to stride quickly towards the chaos and leaving her to hurry to keep up. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t obliviate him,” she just barely heard Fitz mutter. “If there’s an inquiry, I’m done for.”

Jemma made a small noise of disbelief. “What –?”

“I’m not supposed to go near the Second Salemers,” he explained gruffly, navigating around the muggle crowd that seemed to think the panic was about a gas explosion. “If we have to explain where you and the muggle met and I found you, they’ll know why I was there. Second Salemers always preach there.” Fitz let out a low sigh, squinting up at where Trip’s building emitted a long, dark stream of smoke. “I’ve spent my entire career... and then, pfft, like nothing, it’s gone.”

The last few words were so quiet that she barely heard them, and she nearly tripped over someone as she tried to match Fitz’s pace through the crowd. “What?” He glanced back at her as they made their way into the cleared alley next to the building. Yet again, she was struck by the thought that there was much more to Leopold Fitz than met the eye. “You spent your entire career what?” 

Giving his head a sharp shake, Fitz reached for his wand to unlock the back door. “Nothing.”

 

\------

 

Fitz secured the last brick in Trip’s bedroom window, taking care to make the window look damaged to muggle investigator eyes, but be easy for a muggle to fix without any cost. The harder he focused on his task, the less likely he was to think about the potential catastrophic level of destruction being wrecked elsewhere in the city by whatever monstrosity had torn apart the building’s wall in the first place. 

Meanwhile, Simmons was busy checking on the health of the muggle himself, kneeling next to where he was lying on the floor. “Murtlap attack,” she announced, helping pull the so-called Trip into a sitting position. “Nothing serious.”

“Nothing serious?” Fitz repeated incredulously. “Simmons, do you know anything about the wizarding community in America?”

She evidently took offense at that, leaning back on her heels and narrowing her eyes. “I do, actually. I know you have rather backwards laws about relations with non-magic people – that you’re not meant to befriend them, and can’t marry them, all of which seems quite absurd.” She gestured to Trip as she spoke, and, to Fitz’s confusion, a vein of jealousy bloomed in his gut.

“Who’s marrying _him_?” Fitz spluttered. Simmons returned a dry look, and, well – he had to concede that this particular muggle was probably handsome enough to tempt virtually anyone in both the magical and non-magical communities. “Don’t answer that.”

“In any case,” she continued, rolling her eyes, “he should be back to normal in no more than forty-eight hours.” 

Trip – who was now sweating rather profusely and hadn’t said anything since they’d arrived – let out a small whine. “Seriously?!” 

“Cheer up, Mr. Triplett,” Simmons said cheerfully as she and Fitz hauled him to his feet. “At least you seem to have avoided the worst symptom!”

“We’re going to have to keep an eye on him anyway,” Fitz warned her, noting the disconcert that flitted across her features.

“We?”

“Yes,” he said firmly, taking Trip by the elbow and guiding him down the hall. “We. I don’t have anything for a murtlap bite.” 

Picking up her case and following behind them, Simmons let out a small huff. “I wouldn’t leave without giving him proper care, anyway. But forty-eight hours....”

As she trailed off, Trip glanced between them apprehensively. “Just, ah, outta curiosity - what woulda been the worst symptom?” 

“Flames erupting from your anus,” Simmons answered with a smile, leaving the two men to make noises of distress and horror as she strode past them and into the hallway.

 

\------

 

Much to Jemma’s fascination, the apartment that Fitz shared with his sister was brightly lit with both muggle lamps and floating candles. Although she should have gone straight into her case to concoct a poultice for Trip’s wound, she found herself distracted from her task. At least Trip’s sweating had decreased during their long walk out of the muggle neighborhood, even if he had been discombobulated yet again by their apparation of him with them to Fitz’s building. The flat did not seem like the kind of place Fitz would live, and she found herself hunting for clues as to what was his sister’s and what was his.

The space was cluttered, but pleasantly so, with furnishings that seemed to be a mix of different styles, as if the buyers had picked them up at sales in a hundred different stores over a long period of time. It seemed well lived-in, if a little large for only two people.

“Daisy?” Fitz called out, taking Trip’s coat and hat to hang on the rack by the door.

“It’s Skye now,” returned a female voice from the next room, and Fitz let out a groan.

“Bloody – sorry!”

The wooden divider between the rooms slid open, revealing a short brunette with a wide smile and glint of mischief in her eyes. “S’alright – you just keep owing me those chores, I don’t mind.” 

Jemma swore she saw Fitz stick out his tongue at Skye in her peripheral vision, but by the time she could see him properly he was busy taking off his coat. 

“He didn’t forget my name,” Skye said, and Jemma started as she voiced an answer to the question Jemma had only just begun to think. “I went through something pretty big recently and decided to change it. Poor ol’ Fitzy isn’t used to it yet.”

“Her full, legal name is ‘Daisy Mary Skye Johnson-Fitz,’” Fitz griped, plopping his hands on his waist. “Excuse me for forgetting which one you’re going by this week.”  

“This month,” she retorted cheekily, and reached out to give Jemma’s hand an eager shake. “It’s swell to finally meet you, Jemma, Fitz used to talk about you all the time –” 

“ _Skye_ ,” Fitz squeaked, a flush blooming on his cheeks, at the same time that Jemma spoke.

“How did you...” she started, trailing off as she realized how Skye had known her name without anyone saying it. “ _Oh_. You’re a legilimens?”

Skye gave her an apologetic smile. “Yeah, sorry – just comes naturally, I don’t even know I’m doing it half the time.” Her gaze slid over to Trip, one eyebrow arching as she unsubtly looked him over. “It means I can read minds, sugar.”

“Oh,” the muggle choked out, and Skye let out a peal of laughter. 

“Don’t worry, most guys think the same thing you did when they first see me.” 

Fitz blanched and strode over to the kitchen. “Did you –?”

“Strudel,” she answered before he’d voiced the rest of his question, and he made an approving hum as he leaned over the pots on the stove. “So, you wanna tell me why we’ve got two beautiful guests for dinner tonight? I promise not to do any more mind-reading if I can help....” Her eyes widened, and she turned back to Trip. “Oh, your grandmother’s strudel sounds amazing! You’ll have to tell me if mine measures up, it was never as good as Mom’s.” Skye cringed and glanced over at Fitz. “Sorry, last time, I promise.”

Fitz’s expression had softened as she spoke, and he leaned forward on one of the small dining table’s chairs. “Mum loved your strudel, y’know.” 

Something dark passed across her expression, something almost like regret, and when she smiled back at her brother, the lines around her mouth were much tighter than they had been before. “I know.”

He frowned, opening his mouth to say something else, and then let out an unholy squawk as he jumped a foot into the air. “What the hell?!”  

Reaching into the pocket of the jacket he still held, Fitz pulled out a silver egg, cracks shivering slowly across its surface. It must have fallen out of Jemma’s case at some point earlier today, and to her delight, it seemed to have begun hatching. 

“My occamy egg,” she exclaimed, shedding her long, blue coat and dumping it unceremoniously on a chair before hurrying to Fitz’s side. 

A large piece of shell popped off and tumbled over the edge of Fitz’s hand, revealing a small, dragon-like head with glimmering, opalescent scales. 

“An occamy,” Fitz breathed, staring down at where the little creature was now regarding him with interest. “I didn’t know there were even any left.”

“Indeed,” Jemma said, happily reaching out to cup her hands around the egg, cradling it close to her chest. “Thank you for guarding this, Fitz, your body heat must have sped up his hatching!” She scratched the creature on the back of its head, and it gave a full-body wriggle of happiness. “Just like mummy.” 

“Nope,” Trip said abruptly, and the other three turned to him. “I’m definitely not dreaming.” 

Jemma chuckled, moving over to set her case on its side. “What tipped you off?” 

“I couldn’t make any of this crazy stuff up.”   

Skye laughed again and even Fitz cracked a smile. Opening the lid to her case, Jemma made sure she was holding the occamy in its egg securely against her abdomen before addressing the others. 

“I need to put him in his nest, and make that murtlap venom poultice.” 

“You’re comin’ right back, though, right? Dinner’s almost ready.” Skye gave her a warm, knowing smile, and Jemma glanced over at Fitz. 

His behavior confused her to the point that she wasn’t even sure he wanted her there. On the one hand, he reportedly talked about her a lot, which was intriguing particularly because they hadn’t seen each other in a decade and a half. On the other, he’d been acting frustrated with her all day, as if he couldn’t stand to be around her. A part of her had briefly wondered if it might just be less awkward for her to spend the rest of the evening in her case, apart from attending to Trip. And that wondering, of course, was what Skye had overheard.

“Oh, don’t mind Fitz,” Skye said, and Jemma wrinkled her nose as she realized that the other woman had read her mind again. “He’s just outta sorts ‘cause he hasn’t eaten in a while.”

When Jemma glanced back at Fitz, he ducked his head as he gathered his coat into both hands. “Her, ah, strudel’s really great,” he mumbled, scooting past the others to hang his coat on the rack. “Wouldn’t want to miss it.”

“Well, definitely not,” Jemma said at last, touched by his small, if grumpily offered, olive branch. “I’ll be back up in just a tick.”

 

\--------

 

Darkness suffocated even the moon that night, clouds moving swiftly across the sky as if fleeing a storm. Within a small alleyway in the heart of Manhattan, a scrawny teenager leaned into the one-armed embrace of a tall, strapping man, hoping to hear the same words that he’d been promised nearly every night for the past month.

Ward closed a metal amulet into Donnie’s hand, squeezing his fingers so that the corners jabbed painfully into his palm. 

“You’re the key, Donnie,” Ward whispered, and Donnie closed his eyes, consumed by the promises he so desperately wanted to hear. “I know you are. You want to join the wizarding world, and I want that for you, too.”  

Ward tightened his grip around Donnie’s shoulders, and he wished he never had to leave this alley. Here was the only place he ever felt wanted, and the older wizard was the only person who had ever actually cared about him. 

“Find the child. Find the child and we’ll all be free.” Ward gave Donnie’s shoulder one last squeeze, and without any further word he strode into the shadows at the back of the alleyway and disappeared into thin air, leaving Donnie alone. 

Shivering, the teenager uncurled his fingers to stare at the triangular amulet in his palm, a reflection of the lone, nearby streetlight flickering at its edges. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay, I'm finally back to posting this! I'll have the rest up ASAP, posting ~one chapter a week. (With the brief exception for a couple of weeks when I'll finish posting [Side By Side](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7533850).) Should just about take us through to the end of this hiatus! :-)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to post again a bit early - just 'cause. ;-)

“Oh yes,” Jemma murmured, mostly to herself, as she peered closely at the teeth-shaped gash on Trip’s shoulder. “That was definitely the murtlap.” 

“So he really won’t remember anything?” As Jemma patched up his injury, Trip was getting explanations from Fitz about everything he’d experienced that afternoon but hadn’t understood. At this instant, they were talking about what Jemma had done to the bank manager in the vault.

“Yup, that’s obliviate for you,” Fitz said, helping Skye to arrange dishes on the table.  

“Thank God,” Trip muttered. “I thought I might have to leave the city, on top of being turned down for the loan.”

“Why on earth would you have to leave?” Jemma said, carefully affixing a sterile bandage over the poultice she’d just applied to his wound.

Trip tilted his head to give her a dry look. “What do I look like to you?” 

“A tall drink of water?” Skye answered, winking as she placed a new plate and glass in front of him on the table. 

Sparing her a small chuckle, Trip shook his head, wincing when the movement pulled at his shoulder. “They hang guys like me for crimes like that.”

“Even in New York?” Jemma’s cheeks warmed as all three of the others turned to stare at her, and she felt suddenly rather ignorant of American society.  

“Even in New York,” Skye repeated quietly, letting Fitz catch and squeeze her hand as they passed each other. “People on the street can’t always tell I’m half Chinese, but it ain’t fun when they do.”

“Kids at that orphanage were right arseholes,” Fitz muttered, letting Skye hush his grumbling. 

A few awkward moments passed then, all four of them occupied with their own thoughts. Jemma noticed the way Fitz’s concern was focused on his sister, his worried gaze following her as she dished out the food onto platters. Considering that the Fitz she’d known at Hogwarts had had no siblings to speak of, it was rather sweet the way he worried about Skye.

“There,” Jemma said, breaking the silence as she finished wrapping Trip’s shoulder. “And take this and this with water.” She handed him two pills of her own making. “One will take care of the sweating, and the other will sort that leg twitch.”

“Thanks.” Trip gave her a grateful smile as he dry swallowed the two pills and stretched out of his seat to go fetch himself a glass. 

“I am sorry about all this,” she said, studying his movement to make sure nothing else was amiss. “You must be particularly susceptible to murtlap venom. You’re a muggle, after all, so our physiologies are somewhat different.” 

“I work at MACUSA,” Skye said suddenly, answering a question that someone (presumably Trip) hadn’t yet had the chance to ask. “Or I will,” she added, sliding into her seat, “once I’ve finished Auror training.” 

“Aren’t you a bit old to just be starting training?” 

Fitz threw Jemma an exasperated look, and she wondered briefly if that question had been a little more tactless than she’d meant it. Skye, however, just grinned and handed the potatoes to her brother.  

“Yeah, well – I was away for a while. Wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, y’know, with all these voices in my head.” She tapped one finger to her temple. “But I figured out that the place I wanted to be most was home, so here I am.” With an apologetic grin, she turned to Trip. “An Auror’s sorta like wizard law enforcement. They find and capture dark wizards.”

Clearly, she’d just answered another question that Trip had been thinking, and he gave his head an amiable shake. “I – wow, that really is somethin’. But, d’you mind maybe not reading my mind for a while?” Skye grimaced, but he stopped her before she could continue. “I mean, seriously, it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, but I’d like to be able to actually participate in the conversation, y’know?” 

Jemma looked over the rim of her glass at the way Skye shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the fringe of her fashionable but plain magenta dress swaying in the candlelight. 

“Most people say it makes them uncomfortable,” Skye said quietly, relaxing when Fitz gave her a smile around his bite of potato. “I have a bad habit of figuring out secrets.”

Laughing, Trip shrugged. “I’m an open book. I just wanna be able to say my own two bits.” 

A smile tilting up the corner of her mouth, Skye raised an eyebrow at him. “Deal.”

The rest of dinner passed without event, the three wizards chatting about surface issues in the wizarding world – such as marveling in fear at the rise to power of a cruel wizard like Grindlewald, and wondering at the disappearance of Garrett – and filling in Trip on questions he had. To her credit, Skye managed not to read any one else’s mind (or at least, managed to hide that she had been) until everyone’s plates were empty again. She stopped herself in the middle of a sentence directed at Trip, turning her head to glare at her brother.

“I’m not flirting!”

Fitz’s eyebrows raised to his hairline, and he sighed, tossing his napkin onto the table. “I’m just saying, D- Skye. Don’t go getting attached – he’s gonna have to be obliviated, you know that.” As he pushed his chair back from the table to begin cleaning up, he gave Trip an apologetic grimace. “It’s the law, it’s not personal.”

Disconcert passed over Trip’s face, and he looked down at his empty plate. “Well, I... guess I can’t argue with the law.” A grin broke across his expression, and he leaned forward towards Skye. “What if I pull a rabbit out of a hat? That counts as having magic, right?”

Skye let out a peal of laughter, leaning back in her chair as Fitz cleaned away her plate.

“People _like_ you,” Jemma mused, standing and pitching in with the clean up, “don’t they, Trip?”

“Yeah,” he answered nonchalantly, “usually. Y’all are pretty likeable too, though.”

“Not me.” Jemma began to run water in the sink, turning her back on the others. “I annoy people.”

From behind her, Skye let out a small noise of incredulity, and Jemma jumped as she felt something brush against her arm. When she turned, Fitz was standing right next to her, reaching out to add two glasses to the sink.

“Always was a bit of an odd bird,” he teased. Normally, that kind of remark might make Jemma shy away, sure that yet another person was turned off by her socially inept behavior, but his words were accompanied by a bashful, kind half-smile that made something warm and hopeful flicker in her chest. Somehow, she rather thought he meant that as a compliment.

When she finally turned around from washing their dishes – with Fitz’s help – Skye and Trip were engrossed in swapping baking tips, and seemed entirely unaware that anyone else was still in the room. Jemma found her gaze wandering over to her suitcase, and she jumped as Fitz cleared his throat and interrupted her train of thought.

“Weren’t thinking of leaving, were you?"  

Jemma let out a dismissive scoff, pushing away from the counter and collecting her coat from the chair onto which she’d dumped it. “And abandon a patient before his observation time is up? Really Fitz, what kind of a doctor do you take me for?” 

“One who apparently had top priority business to attend to earlier, and who doesn’t really seem like she wants to be here.” He crossed his arms, piercing blue eyes pinning her from across the room.

“Well, I wasn’t leaving,” she retorted, feeling a little more piqued than she perhaps ought. “I just have to attend to my creatures, and check to make sure that none of them are missing after Trip’s mishap.” 

Fitz lowered his eyes, giving her a nod as he passed by her in the archway to head towards the living room. “Yeah, alright.”

“Unless....” She trailed off, fingers twisting nervously in the hem of her coat as she observed the quickness to him stopping and turning back towards her. Perhaps this was her chance to finally get to know Leopold Fitz, even if it was fifteen years late. “Would you like to come with me? To see them?”

Before she’d even finished her small, shy hand wave in the direction of the case, Fitz was nodding eagerly and taking a step in her direction. “Yeah,” he breathed, excitement setting his whole face alight. “That’d be – I mean, if it’s not a....” 

“Come on, then,” she said with a smile, striding over to pop the case’s snaps. “In you go.”

 

\------

 

One day, Fitz thought as his mouth dropped open, he would have to ask Simmons how the hell she’d managed to enchant this suitcase on her own. Many wizards twice their ages couldn’t squeeze a safari park and various human shelters within the confines of a small, leather suitcase, let alone someone as young as she. When they’d been attending Hogwarts together, he’d known that she was the most brilliant witch of their year – and probably plenty other years besides – but this was on another level entirely.

From where he stood on the wooden patio of the case’s cabin entryway, he could see a horizonless savannah of fresh grass and at least three different types of small forests or jungles, as well as hear other environments around the other side of the case. Simmons had created a perfect, contained habitat for every one of the creatures she had saved, and he was flabbergasted at the skill this kind of magic must have taken.

The horrifying smell of raw meat struck him, however, and he wrinkled his nose at the large bucket that Simmons had shoved into his hands right before sending him outside.

“Follow me,” she said, sweeping past him and hopping down the steps into the dirt. “And stay close. They know me, but they’re not used to visitors.”

“Not a problem,” he mumbled, widening his eyes at each new habitat they passed, trying to absorb as much as possible. “Is, ah, it dangerous in here?” 

“Not if you stay close,” Simmons chirped, and Fitz swallowed as he sped up to keep pace with her. 

A dark cloud of rain and thunder crackled over one part of the savannah, and as they approached its edge she put two fingers in her mouth and made an ear-piercing whistle. After a few seconds, the storm clouds began to fade away, and from the sky soared an enormous golden bird, four wings flapping and two tails flowing behind it in the breeze. Fitz’s jaw cracked slightly as it dropped open even wider, and he stared as the bird soared down to land on a rocky crag not far from where Simmons stood. Above them, the sun broke through the clouds, bathing everything around them in a warm, dusky-pink light.

Simmons began praising the bird as if he were her pet, reaching into the leather bag hanging at her side for grubs that she tossed into the air for the bird to catch and eat.

“Thank Paracelsus,” she sighed, turning to wave Fitz over. “If Frank had gotten out, that could have been quite catastrophic.” Once Frank was done munching on his grubs, she stretched onto her tiptoes so that she could stroke her hand gently along the bird’s human head-sized beak. “You see, he’s the real reason I came back to America. To bring him home.”

The same tingling feeling that he’d had the first time a muggle explained to him the inner workings of a car spread through Fitz’s chest, and he put down the bucket so he could step forward until he was a mere breath away from being pressed against Simmons’ shoulder.

“He’s amazing,” Fitz whispered, his free hand raising of its own accord to mimic Simmons. The bird, however, did not appreciate either his closeness or his movement, because it reared back, flapping its wings agitatedly. 

“Oh no,” Simmons exclaimed, lowering Fitz’s arm with her own and reaching her other hand out towards Frank. “I’m sorry, he’s a bit sensitive about strangers. There you go, Frank, it’s fine. See, Fitz is our friend.”

Fitz blinked, looking away from the bird to stare at Simmons. Was it truly possible for her to consider him a friend after having barely a few hours together? There was no artifice around her expression as she continued to pet the gargantuan bird, though, no suggestion that she had said it to trick the creature. Instead, she just murmured the same thing a few more times, eyes alight in the sun’s rays as she focused all her energy on calming the magical beast. Something warm and unfamiliar flickered in Fitz’s chest, and he had to force himself to look away from her and back to the bird.

“Here, if you let me,” she said quietly, stepping in around Fitz’s back and reaching for his right hand. In spite of her petite stature, she held herself around him like a tutor, entwining their fingers and bringing them slowly forward and up to Frank’s beak. “Just duck your head a bit,” she instructed, “avert your eyes, and step forward....”

His ears heated up at her closeness, distracting him such that he actually let out a small gasp when he felt his fingers brush against the hard surface of the thunderbird’s beak. “Well done, Fitz,” she breathed, pressing his hand beneath hers more firmly to the beak. “I’ve never managed to introduce him to anyone before! He usually only trusts me.” 

“He has good taste.” Fitz felt his blush spread to his cheeks at that, the words having tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he was briefly thankful he couldn’t actually see her reaction thanks to their position.

After a few seconds, Simmons gave his hand a light squeeze and slipped hers away, leaving him to hesitantly pet Frank’s beak solo. “He was trafficked, you see. I found him in Egypt, all chained up....” A sad sigh escaped her lips, and Fitz lowered his hand, noting for the first time the traces of scars beneath the bird’s majestic golden feathers. She gave Fitz a determined little smile. “Couldn’t just leave him here, obviously. So I’m going to take him home, to the wilds of Arizona.”

With a swift step forward, Simmons reached out to steady herself against the bird as she stretched up to press their foreheads together, the creature docilely allowing his gargantuan head to be moved about by this tiny witch. “I’m going to put you back where you belong,” she whispered to the thunderbird, and something akin to pure wonderment washed through Fitz’s whole body. The image was not one he would easily forget, the sight of the petite brunette holding the enormous, golden-feathered bird close to her as if it were the most precious thing in her life.

“Well,” she said at last, stepping away and watching with a wide smile as Frank took off into the sunset, the backdraft from his wings sending their hair into disarray. “We’ve got a lot to do now, so _allons-y_.”

Scrambling to keep up as she strode off in the direction of a different habitat, Fitz raised an amused eyebrow. “Spend much time in France, then?”

“Morocco,” she answered. “After we made it out of Egypt. They have some excellent gameskeepers there, and I needed advice on healing Frank’s wounds.”

In short order, they entered a glade that seemed to be divided into separate sections, most likely based on the animals they housed. As Simmons flitted from one mini-habitat to another, Fitz followed behind, watching as she pruned leaves or reached into her bag for different types of feed. (When he realized he’d left the bucket of raw meat back in the field where he’d met Frank, Fitz winced and hoped that Simmons wouldn’t notice. Perhaps whatever needed to be fed that particular meal would find it on its own.) Occasionally, she gave him tasks to do, explaining what she was doing before handing him one odd object or another.

“You’ve rescued all these creatures?” he asked, fumbling the four coconuts she piled into his arms.

“Yes, that’s right. Rescue, heal if necessary, and protect them.” She took the coconuts and disappeared behind a low fence, the sound of a machete chopping up the fruit sounding beneath her words. “And gently try to educate the wizarding community about them as I travel, although I’ve never had much success in America. They are oddly resistant to change here.”

Fitz shrugged. “I s’pose I can relate to that. But I never understood the laws against magical creatures.”

Coming back out from behind the fence, Simmons arched an eyebrow at him as she wiped her hands on her trousers. “You just enforce them.”

“If I need to,” he retorted, spinning on his heel to follow as she moved to a different section of the glade. “That’s not generally my area anyway, though.”

“What _is_ your area, then?” Glancing away from him, Simmons slipped one finger up to the pocket of her vest, removing a spindly, green creature rather reminiscent of a twig. Fitz had to wrack his brain for the name of the species, but eventually came up with bowtruckle.

“If all you do is travel around to save these creatures,” he mused, watching as she returned the bowtruckle to the little colony next to which they now stood, “who pays you? How d’you live?” He was intentionally avoiding the answer to her question, because it might lead to needing to explain why he was no longer with the department he’d fought so long and hard to be a part of, and he couldn’t quite bear the thought of embarrassing himself in front of this particular witch twice in one day. “I mean, d’you have an employer, or...?”

“I’m self-employed.” With the bowtruckle settled, she studied his face for a few, long seconds, before evidently choosing not to press him further. “The Ministry hires me sometimes as a consultant, especially for difficult cases regarding muggle ‘science.’ I learned quite a bit about it when I left Hogwarts, and one of their top Aurors was a good friend.” Simmons wrinkled her nose, and hitched her bag higher on her shoulder as she turned towards another habitat. “I mean, she _is_ a good friend – _was_ a top Auror.”

“Not anymore?”

“It’s a – rather long story.” Intrigued, Fitz wanted to follow up with more questions, but he was halted at the sound of furious chirping in the large, wooden nest that they now approached. Simmons hurried forward, dropping her bag at its base. “Oh yes, alright, I’m coming, Mum’s coming!” She bent over the edge to reach inside, her feet nearly coming up off the ground. “Here I am, it’s alright... _ohhh_ ,” she whispered, dropping back onto the dirt, small puffs clouding around her boots, “hello gorgeous!” With a practiced movement, she scooped up something small and aquamarine into both her hands. “Let me look at you.” With soft noises of encouragement, Simmons inspected the little creature. A wide smile brightened her face as she looked up at Fitz, holding her hands toward him. “Your occamy.” 

He blinked. “My what?” As he stared down at the small creature, a cross between a snake, a lizard, and a dragon with feathers, he realized with a start that this was the animal that had nearly hatched in his pocket. “Oh,” he whispered, taking two hesitant steps forward, “my... _oh_.”

Her grin widening, Simmons stepped forward again, so that they were nearly toe-to-toe. “Would you like to...?” Lifting the animal up to his chest level, she gave him a soft nod as he met her eyes.

“Yeah, all... alright, yeah.” Fitz swallowed, torn between being thrown off by her apparent lack of personal boundaries and being nervous about holding an unfamiliar creature.

“Just keep your hands cupped,” she instructed, gently sliding the baby occamy into his hands and then curling hers beneath his. 

Between the slippery scales and smooth feathers against his palms, and the coolness of Simmons’ skin against his, Fitz’s sense of touch was on overload. It didn’t help that he kept wanting to flick his eyes back up to study her gaze, curious about the warmth he found there and the flecks of copper in her otherwise brown irises. Something vague and oddly romantic flitted through his head and he ducked, a flush surely once again tinting his ears. He was being an idiot. Aside from having had classes together for one year a decade and a half ago, they barely knew each other.

Curled in his hands, the occamy chirped happily, tilting its head from side-to-side as it regarded him. Wanting to inspect the creature more closely, Fitz raised his hands to his face. Just as he was about to lean forward, the occamy darted forward to nip at the air between them, and Simmons reached hurriedly out to lower his hands.

“Sorry,” she said, slipping her hands over his to take the occamy away and return it to its nest. “They learn to defend themselves early, to protect their eggs. They’re silver, you see, so the nests are often ransacked by hunters.”

Once she’d carefully dropped a few, large insects into the nest, she grabbed her bag and gave him a smile. “Off we go, then!” The occamies swarmed their dinner, opalescent scales glinting as they fought over the roaches.

Obediently taking the small sack she held out to him (he was unsure what it contained, other than that it emitted quiet squeaks if he swung it too vigorously), Fitz followed as Simmons led him to the next of her duties. His footsteps slowed, however, as he caught a glimpse of an enclosure kept far apart from those of the other animals. The corner of a camouflaged tarp whooshed open to reveal a sinister black orb floating in the center of a snowscape, and then closed again just as quickly. Suspicion sliced into his gut, and as he jogged to catch up with Simmons, he wondered if she really was telling him the truth about her reasons for coming to America.

The rest of her chores did not take long, and after a few more stops he even felt like he was actually getting a handle on helping. She told him about each of the animals, where she’d collected them, their names if she’d given any, and other tidbits that seemed relevant to their discussion at the time. Even when he was still being homeschooled by his mum he hadn’t learned this much about magical creatures, and he found the whole topic wildly interesting. The way her face lit up when she spoke about her animals was particularly enchanting, and his disconcert at the sight of the seeming dark force leeched away again. Someone this caring couldn’t possibly have malicious motives; not Simmons.

At last, she led them back to the cabin entryway, pushing the door open and then traipsing inside after him.

“Well done, Fitz,” she said warmly, sweeping loose hair out of her face and pushing her rolled sleeves up over her elbows. “We work quite well together. I’ve never met anyone who stuck with it so long –”

“It’s fascinating,” he interrupted, leaning against a rough-hewn column and giving his head an incredulous shake. “Can’t believe they don’t teach more about magical beasts at Hogwarts, it’s so interesting.”

Simmons wrinkled her nose from where she was cleaning up her workspace. “How would you know that?” 

“Mum homeschooled us with Hogwarts’ curriculum,” he explained. “Headmaster Dippet gave one of the professors permission to do a sort of correspondence course from across the ocean. Special request or something.”

“But wouldn’t it have just been easier to enroll at the American wizarding school? Ilvermorny? It’s supposed to be fine, I think, if a bit more rough-and-tumble.”

Fitz shrugged, keeping his eyes on the organized system of drawers installed above her table. “I think Mum wanted to keep me at Hogwarts, but with the move that obviously wouldn’t work. And then she adopted Daisy, and....” He trailed off, not really wanting to go into all the nitty gritty details of the strange circumstances that had led his mother to make the choices she had. His father’s departure the year before he’d started at Hogwarts had been the real impetus for the ensuing changes in their lives, and that was a sensitive topic that he didn’t feel like delving into. “My aunt helped out half the time, when Mum was with MACUSA. It was kinda nice only to have to compete with my sister,” he joked, earning himself a chuckle from Simmons. “But I think sometimes she really wished she’d gone to Ilvermorny. She used to have a huge Wampus drawing in her room.”

“How about you?” She turned back to him, studying him as he had been her. “Did you like being homeschooled?”

Fitz hesitated before answering, reticent to be quite this open with someone he barely knew. “My mum did her best, but... I took to magic pretty quickly. It was a good thing Dumbledore kept up with –”

“Dumbledore?” Her voice raised at the end of the word, clearly impressed. “ _That_ was the professor who did your... your correspondence course?”

Nodding, Fitz raised his eyes to meet hers. “Yeah. Took a shine to me first year, I guess. Without him I would’ve hated being homeschooled. As it was, I guess it was kinda nice, ‘cause it let me and Daisy learn at different speeds, y’know?”

Simmons hummed, staring intently back at him. “That would be nice. I always felt that the classes went a bit slow for my liking.”

“I could tell.” He grinned at the surprise in her expression. “You used to do this little tapping thing with your foot when you got impatient.” 

Her mouth dropped open, she looked away, then back again, and bit her lip to hide a half-smile. “Quite the observant one, you are."  

Fitz cleared his throat. “Yeah, uh, sometimes. I can be.”

After a few more seconds of watching him, she let out a low sigh and collected her blue jacket from its hook. “Well, I’m sorry to do this, but I’m afraid I have to leave you to watch Trip for a while –”

“What? Why?”

“I’m missing three creatures.” The worry in the crease of her brow was palpable. “I can’t waste any more time in finding them and closing them back in here.”

“I’ll come with you.” The words were out of his mouth before he’d even made a conscious decision to follow them through, and Simmons’ eyebrows raised nearly to her hairline. 

“Oh, Fitz, really, it could be dangerous, and –” 

“Yeah, so wouldn’t it be better if you had help?” He straightened from his leaning slouch, trying to look as capable as possible. “You just said we worked well together, so let me come with you.”

A bright smile broke across her face. “Promise to do as I say?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied drily, and that only made her grin wider.

“Well then – we’ve got quite a night ahead of us.”


	4. Chapter 4

Skye hopped over to the mirror in the entryway of her and Fitz’s apartment, checking to make sure that she didn’t look as flustered as she felt. The knock at the door had taken her by surprise, considering the late hour and the fact that both Fitz and Simmons had left at least an hour and a half ago. Plus, she and Trip had been having a spirited debate about the merits of a closed or a crisscrossed crust, _and_ his eyes had trailed to her lips at least twice in the past half an hour. She was fairly certain that if she’d had another half an hour alone with him, he’d have been putty in her hands; but now she had other things to focus on. Having a muggle guest – and a male one, at that – in her apartment would almost definitely result in Skye’s arrest by MACUSA should the person on the other side of the door tattle, so her pulse had spiked at the merest knock. 

At the moment, Trip was hidden behind the sliding door to the living room with strict instructions not to make a sound. Trying to look as if she’d just been falling asleep while reading in Fitz’s favorite chair, Skye forced out a yawn just as she tugged the door open.

“Mack!” She relaxed immediately, and tilted so that she was leaning comfortably against the door, her weight on the handle. “What’re you doing here so late? Hunter get bum-rushed from another speakeasy?” 

Mack chuckled and removed his Trilby, holding it in front of himself with both hands. “Nah, I just came to check in on Fitz. He didn’t come back to the office today, and I wanted to make sure everything went alright.” 

“Oh yeah,” she said, giving one hand a dismissive wave. “He’s fine. And you’ll never believe it, but he’s out with a _girl_ right now. One that he _likes_.”

Mack’s eyes narrowed, and a flash of his thoughts popped into Skye’s head unbidden. _Oh no_. 

“Was she English?”

“Uhhhh....” For all Skye was excellent at finding out other people’s secrets, she was not the best at keeping her own. 

Reading her stalling correctly, Mack sighed, and pushed gently past her into the apartment. “Sounds like I should probably come inside.”

Skye gave her head a rueful shake, loose curls tickling where they framed her face, and closed the door behind him. Fitz was not going to be happy about this.

 

\------

 

Laughter bubbled out of both Jemma and Fitz simultaneously as they fell back onto the grass of the erumpet habitat in her case. The formerly lost creature happily galumphed away from them across the field, her heavy steps vibrating underneath Jemma’s head, and she turned to look at Fitz. He was lying directly next to her, arms spread out as if he was about to make a dirt angel. For the first time since they’d run into each other this morning at the bank, a truly unguarded grin split his face, making his eyes shine in a wholly endearing way. His hair was wild and his shirtsleeves were shoved far up on his arms, and she felt pulled towards him in a way she wasn’t sure she ever had for anyone else before. 

Although periodically other men caught her eye, that version of attraction was effectively hollow; within the span of one date they always proved to be rather boring. Not that Jemma had much of a dating life to speak of these days, anyway, what with her constant traveling around the world to save magical beasts from muggles and poachers. But she’d now been with Fitz for hours longer than any normal date, and she couldn’t fathom getting tired of him. During their exhilarating gallivant through Manhattan, they’d branched out to talking about far more than just the creatures, from their favorite things about Hogwarts (Fitz missed the disappearing food on the banquet tables, while Jemma liked the challenge of the moving staircases), to their childhoods, to all manner of topics in between. Much to her fascination, Fitz had spent a fair amount of time around muggles as a child, despite the fact that his mother came from a very old wizarding family, and Jemma had a million questions to ask him about their inventions. Despite her own expertise on muggles – her parents were both muggle-born – and their “scientific” customs, she often felt that the perspective of someone else would vastly improve her understanding. She suspected that Fitz, with his quick wit and sharp blue eyes, could teach her many interesting things. 

Letting out a long exhale, he reached up to scrub one hand over his forehead. “I cannot believe you usually do things like that by yourself. You really are an odd bird. Brilliant, but odd.”

“And you haven’t even seen me do the mating dance yet,” she quipped, face flushing bright pink as his eyes widened in surprise. “I mean the erumpet one! Not – not another... the erumpet one.” She groaned and leaned back, covering her face with her hands.

Fitz chuckled and turned to her with a wry grin. “I bet it’s something magnificent.”

“You could say that,” Jemma mumbled, trying to squash her complete and utter mortification. Deciding to deflect by changing the subject, she turned her head to meet his gaze, shifting herself partway onto her side. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.” 

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t mean to pry, but – I just have to know. Why on earth are you working for the _wand permit_ office?” Something closed off behind his eyes, and he returned to staring up at the false sky of her case. “Because you’re amazing, Fitz,” she added, infusing as much earnestness into her voice as she could muster, and that managed to prompt him into looking back at her. “You were the second smartest wizard in our year, after me –” He let out a bark of laughter, and she quirked her lips up. “So I just don’t understand.”

For a few seconds, he looked like he was going to answer, but then he sighed and turned back to the sky. Although she remembered what Coulson had said about Fitz having at one time been an Auror, someone as smart as him would surely be better used elsewhere in MACUSA, or a private organization, rather than being relegated to the wand permit department. Unless, that is, he was being punished for something.

Just as Fitz opened his mouth to respond, a strong tremor ran through the ground beneath them, and adrenaline spiked through her system.

He turned to her in alarm. “Is the erumpet coming back?” 

“No,” Jemma said, scrambling up to her feet. “No, that was from outside the case. It’s spelled to maintain equilibrium inside, no matter what happens to the outer case –”

“To preserve the habitats and creatures –”

“So we wouldn’t feel anything if the case were being moved.” She sprinted across the field towards the entry cabin, twisting around to make sure that Fitz was following after her. “Unless it was a particularly –”

“Hard drop,” Fitz finished for her, patting his trousers holster for his wand as he jogged up the cabin’s steps after her. 

After checking for the presence of her own wand, Jemma took a moment to secure the door of the cabin behind them both. In case anything were to go amiss now, this provided at least some modicum of precaution to protect the creatures – and to prevent them from escaping yet again.

“I’ll go take a peek. You stay down here and –”

“Scream loudly to bring as much attention to myself as possible?” He gave her a wry look and pointed his wand up the stairs. “Go on, I have your back.”

A vein of warmth spread through her chest at his steadfastness, and she gave him a grateful nod before stepping onto the ladder. With one hand, she popped open the locks to the lid of the case and cracked it open just enough that she could get a glimpse of the room outside. Voices carried through the gap first, and a couple meters away she could see a gathering of men and women in dress clothes (or at least, in slacks or hose and nice shoes, respectively).

“She arrived this morning?” The male voice – clipped and angry – sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it, and continued casting about in her limited view for any clue as to where they’d been taken. When she’d closed them in the case, they had been in an isolated corner of Central Park; now, they were definitely in some sort of office. “You’ve known for almost a full day,” the voice continued, “that an unregistered wizard set magical beasts loose in New York, and you see fit to tell us only when a man has been _killed_?”

Jemma’s eyes widened, both in surprise at the realization that they were almost certainly talking about her, as well as at having spotted something that told her at once where they were. Earlier, she’d noticed a framed poster of infamous MACUSA President Margaret “Peggy” Carter when she and Fitz had been eavesdropping, and she could see the corner of it now. Someone had brought them to the Aurors.

“Who’s been killed?” A different, deeper voice spoke, one that also sounded familiar but not enough for her to identify the speaker sight unseen.

There was a pause, and one pair of black dress loafers began to walk in her direction. Just as she was about to let the case click closed, a third voice spoke: “Welcome to the conversation, Miss Simmons. You might as well come on out.”

Wincing at having been caught, she took in a slow breath and dipped her head to meet Fitz’s worried gaze.

“ _Stay here_ ,” she mouthed, and wrinkled her nose when he shook his head. “ _Your job!_ ” Jemma guessed that even if she hadn’t recognized the voices, judging by their location, Fitz likely would. 

In response, he just shrugged and took two steps up the rung of the ladder. She let out a small scoff and waved at him with her wand-holding hand, trying to get him to go back down, but all he did was climb up two more steps, putting them in very close proximity as he crowded into her space. If she were to lean down, in fact, they would be nose-to-nose. His jaw was set, and as he stared stubbornly up at her, she wasn’t sure whether she was annoyed that he wouldn’t listen, or more attracted to him than she’d ever been. Tearing her gaze away from his, she took a second to steel her nerves before pushing the case’s top open and clambering out, followed closely by Fitz.

The third speaker who had approached the case was Coulson, Fitz’s former boss, and he let out a disappointed sigh as he saw the two of them emerge. “ _Fitz_ ,” he said reproachfully. “I told you, I can’t protect you anymore –”

“I know, sir.” Fitz stepped forward so that he was standing side by side with Jemma, and she fought the urge to reach for his hand. 

“Jemma Simmons,” came the first voice again, and she turned to see that it belonged to President Fury himself. “Do you know which of your creatures did this?”

He pointed up to the mirroring spell that the group of Aurors and MACUSA personnel had likely been observing, the ghostly image of a mangled dead body floating above their heads. Horror slid into her gut as she recognized the distinctive injuries that had been inflicted upon the man in the seconds prior to his death. 

“No creature did this,” she whispered, stepping forward until she was standing beneath the pale grey, wisp of an image. “Surely you know that, you must know what it is. Look at the marks... that was an obscurus.” 

Frightened murmurs spread throughout the small gathering, and she glanced over to see Fury’s face settle into something hard and worried. “There are no obscurial in America. Impound that case, Ward, and take them into custody.” 

“Wait,” Jemma cried out, her own arms being yanked back by a force unseen and her wand clattering onto the wooden floor, “Fitz didn’t have anything to do with it –”

“He was helping you,” said the chiseled, stoic man she’d met in the wand permit office earlier that day, and he gave his head a regretful shake as he conjured ropes to tightly bind Fitz’s arms. “Means he’s just as responsible.” Then Ward reached for the case, snapping the lid shut, and Jemma felt panic well uncontrollably up in her chest. 

“No, please,” she begged, being pulled towards the door by a different, unfamiliar Auror, “please don’t hurt my animals, they’re not dangerous, they didn’t do this!” She caught a glimpse of deep concern on Coulson’s face as she was marched out of the room, the sound of Fitz and his guard’s footsteps sounding beneath her cries. 

“They’re not dangerous! Please don’t hurt them, _please_!”

 

\------

 

The sound of the English girl’s pleas echoed in the room after she’d been escorted out, and Coulson felt sympathy twist in his stomach. Something about this whole situation struck him as seriously off, and as he watched Fury give further instructions to Ward about inspecting the case, he considered calling in his most promising Auror protégé.

As the Head Auror, Coulson had to finish the clean-up of Senator Whitehall’s death in the muggle part of town, but once that was done, he’d trudge up to the MACUSA owlery and send Skye a note. Mind reading might prove very useful in the coming hours.

 

\------

 

Fitz was furious and sick to his stomach about being betrayed so transparently by someone he considered such a good friend. “I cannot _believe_ you, Mack,” he spat out, pacing the length of the cell. He, Mack, and Simmons were all locked in the dungeons of MACUSA, waiting for their sentencing.

“I’m really sorry, buddy,” Mack said, the same refrain he’d been repeating since they’d been locked away an hour ago. “I was just gonna talk to Coulson, I had no idea they’d all be in there –”

“You had no _right_ ,” Fitz gritted out, anger overwriting the voice in his head that wanted to believe his friend. “It was none of your business!”

“A major infraction of the statute of secrecy is _everyone_ ’s business,” Mack snapped back, and Fitz let out a noise of annoyance before spinning on his heels to look at Simmons.

After having spent the first part of their incarceration yelling instructions and information about her creatures through the bars to anyone who would listen, she had quieted. Now, she sat in silence on the rickety cot in the back corner of the cell, and he inhaled before making his way over to her, wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers. One hand went to move his wand holster as he sat, and he paused as he remembered that MACUSA had, naturally, confiscated his wand.

“Hey,” he said quietly, scooting further onto the rotting mattress so that he was hip-to-hip with Simmons. “Are you alright?” 

“No,” she whispered, staring straight ahead and tightening her grip around her knees. “An obscurial in America... in New York....”

Even Hogwarts didn’t include a unit on obscurials in their curriculum, but Fitz’s mom had made a special point of teaching him and Skye about what they were. Most wizarding communities viewed them as a thing of the past, from before wizards went underground. Many wizards didn’t even think they still existed at all, that they’d died out after muggles had stopped openly hunting wizards. They only occurred when young wizards and witches tried to suppress their magic to avoid persecution.

Fitz was well aware that children – with magic and without – still faced tormentors of all kinds, so the fact that the thing terrorizing New York City for the past two weeks was an obscurus did not surprise him as much as it should. He had not recognized the chaotic damage for the uncontrollable dark force that bursts out of a traumatized child and attacks, but, in retrospect, it made the most sense in the world. And something in his heart cracked at the thought. 

But a thought was bothering him, and, after making sure that Mack was brooding as far away from them in the large cell as he could be, Fitz leaned in to speak in as low a voice as he could manage. “You can’t be that surprised, Simmons. It was in your case....”

She whipped her head around to stare at him, anger flashing in her honey-brown eyes. “You think that _I_ had something to do with this?!”

Motioning for her to keep her voice down, he gave an uneasy glance in Mack’s direction. “I saw it in your case, Simmons. In the snow. That _was_ an obscurus, wasn’t it?”

With a low scoff, she leaned against the wall, dropping her head back to stare at the ceiling. “Yes. But it’s inert once it’s separated from the host – that’s why I have it suspended, to learn as much as I can about it, to try to find a cure. If I let it go, it would just....” She made a small explosion hand gesture. “Disappear. It can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

So whatever had killed the senator had to have come from somewhere – someone – else. Fitz sighed, studying Simmons’ face where she sat, lost in her thoughts. One thing he did remember about her from their classes together was that she was not a strong liar, which had at least one advantage: He believed her.

“How’d you get it? The obscurus?”

If he wasn’t mistaken, tears shimmered at the corners of her eyes as she spoke. “It was in Bahrain. I wasn’t far off, you see, I’d only just picked up Frank in Egypt and I needed to go to the peninsula anyway. May knew I’d been researching obscurials, so she sent me an owl and I came. It was just the two of us, and I was so... I thought I could save the girl, I’d read so much and I thought....” She broke off on a cross between a deep breath and the precursor to a sob, and without thinking Fitz reached out and grabbed her hand. Halting, Simmons blinked down at where his hand covered hers. When she spoke again, her voice was a hair steadier than it had been. “She was only eight years old.”

“What happened?”

Simmons sniffled, face crumpling as she blinked back tears. “The girl died. And a part of May died with her. That’s why she isn’t an Auror anymore. No one really knows where she is.” With a shuddery inhale, she tilted her head to look at him, the stark, single bulb lighting the cell throwing her anguish into sharp relief. “I thought I could study the obscurus, so that next time... but it’s too soon, I don’t know enough, and I can’t... I can’t bear to lose another child to that _thing_ , Fitz, I can’t –” 

“Hey,” he interrupted, reaching up to swipe carefully at the handful of escaped tears where they slid down her cheeks. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll be with you, alright? We’ll fix it together.”

Lips parting in surprise, Simmons stared at Fitz for long enough that he had to look away. When he made to remove his hand from hers, however, she squeezed his fingers back. He supposed he didn’t have to let go just yet.

 

\------

 

Morning bled into afternoon, and Skye was beginning to get genuinely worried. Despite Mack’s assurance that he would go collect Fitz and Simmons and bring them to MACUSA for safekeeping, the fact that Fitz hadn’t gotten in touch with her afterwards set off warning bells in her head. It wouldn’t be the first time Fitz had spent the night at MACUSA for work, but considering that he wasn’t an Auror anymore, she couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t just owl to tell her where he was.

In order to follow Fitz’s instructions and keep an eye on Trip through his recovery from the murtlap bite, she had called in sick to work, which also meant that she couldn’t go storming off to MACUSA to go find her older brother. If Fitz didn’t contact her within the next few hours, however, she was fully prepared to stun the muggle, lock him in her closet, and then go searching for her brother no matter what. For the moment, however, she was forcing herself to be patient – and she found Trip to be completely fascinating to boot, so at least she wasn’t just pacing the living room in agitation, as she might otherwise be wont to do. 

“So why d’you want to open a bakery?” She turned away from where she’d been staring out the window to give him a small smile.

From where he was leaning back into the forest green sofa, Trip raised his eyebrows at her question. “‘Cause I’m dying,” he replied, voice low, “at that factory. When my division came back after the war, they told us we were heroes, y’know – we never gave the Germans any ground. But now, most of the 93rd Division’s stuck in factories just like mine.” 

“Wait a minute,” Skye said, eyes widening in surprise, “you were one of the Harlem Hellfighters?”

Trip grinned and gave her a half-salute. “Guilty as charged. But most people’ve forgotten about us now, or they don’t care, and... y’know, after seeing all that... horrible stuff, I just wanna do something that makes people happy. You ever seen anyone smile bigger than they do at their birthday cake? Or when someone gives ‘em pastries? That stuff makes people happy.” 

She regarded him thoughtfully, fascinated by this muggle who had learned to fight but wanted to spend his days making people happy with cakes and strudel and sweet things. A tapping at the window interrupted her musings, and she sighed in relief at the sight of Coulson’s eastern screech owl. 

“Hey there, Lola,” Skye said, pushing the window wide open and allowing the red-feathered bird to flap her wings a few times before settling onto an armchair. “What’ve you got for me?” 

It didn’t take her long to scan through the Auror’s neat, cramped handwriting and discern that Fitz was being detained – and that Coulson thought something was deeply amiss. Judging by his phrasing, he’d sent the note hours ago, and Skye let out a small noise of frustration at Lola’s consistently questionable sense of direction.

Without even blinking, she pulled her wand from the sewn-in pocket of her ankle-length skirt and pointed it at Trip. “I’m sorry,” she said, noting the fear now etched across his face. “But I’ve gotta go find my brother, and you can’t come with me. Something’s gone wrong, and –”

“No way,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “Let me help! I’m good in tight spots, and if nothing else I can be a distraction if you need one.” Her wand hand wavered, and he took one step forward. “C’mon, you guys saved me from getting arrested at that bank. Well, I guess if it weren’t for Simmons I wouldn’t’ve been in trouble in the first place, but – look, I wanna help. Let me come with you.”

Skye sighed and reluctantly lowered her wand. As he’d spoken, she’d caught a glimpse of the true feelings behind him wanting to come with her, and she couldn’t quite keep herself from being touched. Even so, something niggled at the back of her head as she reached for her navy coat, and she wondered how long it’d be before she regretted this particular lapse in judgement.


	5. Chapter 5

Jemma missed the sunlight. Time had long since passed for night to have gone and day to have risen, she knew, even though there were no timepieces visible to them in the cell. In her normal routine, she often awoke before dawn just to see the sun rise, and it was disconcerting to not even be able to see outside for so long. Even if she peered through the cell bars, there weren’t any windows – real or spelled – in the main room of the dungeon within which the guards sat. The whole area was clearly designed to be as miserable as possible, and she couldn’t wait to leave. 

At the moment, Mack was being led away by new guards, having apparently been cleared of any wrongdoing or knowledge of Jemma’s plans and creatures. 

“I’m sorry,” Mack called back to them from down the hall. “I’ll find Coulson, see if he can put in a good word with Fury.”

“Yeah, right,” Fitz muttered, and Jemma turned from where she stood at the bars, arms crossed, to give him a reproachful look. “What?” 

“I don’t think he meant any harm,” she said, sliding down the bars to sit on the floor. “He was just following the rules.”

Propped up against the metal bedframe across from her, Fitz arched an eyebrow. “I like rules as much as the next person, but they don’t always protect the people who need it the most.”

Jemma watched him drop his head back against the mattress, her own brows furrowing in thought. Rather than come up with a good way to counter that argument – considering that he wasn’t actually incorrect – she exhaled slowly. “Are you scared?” 

Chuckling, he tapped his hands against his bent knees. “Yeah, and hungry.” 

“Me, too,” she replied with a small laugh. “Scared and hungry.”

Before she could think up any comforting or distracting thoughts, footsteps approached the cell yet again, and she twisted around to see Ward striding towards them.

“Ward,” Fitz said, scrambling to his feet and reaching out to help Jemma up. “Are we –”

“Come with me,” Ward said, flicking his wand and conjuring handcuffs for them both out of thin air. “I have some questions.” 

Jemma pursed her lips. She suspected that, unlike Fitz had clearly hoped, this was not a promising sign.

 

\------

 

Shifting on his feet, Fitz tried to resist the urge to ask Ward what in the _bloody hell_ was going on. His former partner had led them to one of MACUSA’s most remote interrogation rooms, flanked by two guards that Fitz didn’t recognize, and it seemed that Ward himself intended to question them. Normally, Coulson would be brought in for something like this, but Ward had tersely informed Fitz that the senior Auror was still preoccupied with restoring order after the senator’s harrowing murder in the middle of a muggle gala.

A few feet away from the end of the table, Fitz was stationed against the wall, his hands still bound uncomfortably behind his back. He tried moving the cuffs around so that they chafed less against his skin, to no avail. Seated at the table across from Ward, Simmons’ expression was closed off in a way Fitz hadn’t ever seen, making her look genuinely intimidating. She had refused to speak until Ward had assured her that her creatures were all unharmed – for the moment.

“You’re an interesting woman, Miss Simmons,” Ward said, regarding her coolly.

“Ward,” Fitz said, voice low as he glanced at the guards, “she isn’t –”

“Not now, Fitz,” Ward snapped. Sitting forward to study Simmons, the Auror didn’t even look at him. “You were thrown out of Hogwarts in your sixth year for endangering human life –” 

“It was an accident,” Simmons interrupted, but Ward continued over her.

“– With a beast.” 

Fitz couldn’t help the soft noise of shock he made, and Simmons glanced over at him, something at once embarrassed and pained passing over her features. She was the most brilliant witch he’d ever met, and he was quite convinced she might be the smartest witch currently living; it was nothing short of an academic sin for her to have never received her final degree from their alma mater.

“But,” Ward went on, drawing both their attention back to him, “one of your teachers argued pretty strongly against your expulsion. What makes Albus Dumbledore so fond of you?”

Leaning back in her chair, Simmons’ expression faded back into inscrutability. “I really couldn’t say.” 

Again, Fitz had to subdue his surprise; this explained her response when he mentioned that Dumbledore had insisted upon his continued tutelage, despite him having moved to a different continent. He wondered what made the well-respected wizard so keen on them both.

“So setting these dangerous creatures loose in New York was, what, just another accident?” 

Simmons scoffed at Ward’s question. “Why would I do it on purpose?”

Ward gave her a calculated shrug. “To expose wizardkind. To provoke war between the magical and non-magical worlds.”

Darkness passed over Simmons’ features as she caught his meaning, and her next words were clipped. “Mass slaughter for the greater good, you mean.” 

With a low laugh, Ward spread his hands out in front of himself. “Something like that.”

“I’m not one of Grindlewald’s fanatics, Mr. Ward,” Simmons bit out, and a small, unrecognized vein of tension released in Fitz’s shoulders. “Or one of Garrett’s, for that matter, although I understand his goals to be rather... well, even more unhinged, if you can believe that. Total annihilation for the sake of it. Both reprehensible and foolish to boot.” 

Ward’s expression clouded, and with a pointed wave of his wand, the shielded orb that contained the inert obscurus floated down from the high, unseen ceiling. “Okay then – what can you tell us about this?”

Simmons paled, glancing over at Fitz before she spoke, words quick and jumbled. “It’s not what you think. I separated it from the host as I tried to save her, just before she died, but it cannot survive out of stasis, it couldn’t hurt anyone like that –”

“So,” Ward said, smacking one hand flat against the table in frustration, “it’s useless without the host.”

Silence crashed over them, and Fitz felt like a fog had been lifted. His instincts had been nagging at him all day about both their incarceration and Ward’s behavior, and now he knew for certain that something was very, very wrong.

 

\------  


“Useless,” Jemma repeated, her lip curling in disgust. “ _Useless_? That is a parasitical magical force that killed a child. What on earth would anyone _use_ it for?”

“Where’s Coulson?” The undiluted anger in Fitz’s voice surprised Jemma, and when she turned to where he’d been standing his expression was nearly thunderous.

“I’m sorry, Fitz,” Ward said, pushing himself to his feet. “I know you’ve taken a shine to her –”

“A _shine_ –”

“But it’s pretty clear that Miss Simmons came to America to unleash the obscurus, endangering muggle and wizard alike with the intention of provoking war –” 

“I want no such thing!”

“The obscurus is inert in that state, Ward,” Fitz exclaimed, unable to gesture above them with his hands still bound, “look at it!” 

“She is therefore guilty of treasonous betrayal of all wizardkind and is sentenced to death.”

All at once, Jemma felt dizzy, breath quickening in panic. “What?” 

“That’s not how MACUSA works,” Fitz said, struggling against his handcuffs, “Where’s Coulson? Or bloody Fury for that matter?”

“I’m acting with full authority from the President of the Magical Congress of America to carry out any sentence necessary to protect this city.” Ward gestured to the guards, who turned to open the interrogation room’s sole door. “And I’m sorry, Fitz, but for aiding and abetting her –” 

“No,” Jemma exclaimed, fear slicing through her gut. “No, he didn’t have anything to do with it!”

“– You will receive the same sentence.” Ward gave his head a sad shake, but her attention was immediately drawn to the two wizards in white robes who had just stepped through the door: Executioners.

“You can’t!” she cried out as one of the executioners grabbed her bonds and pulled her to her feet. “Fitz is innocent, please don’t –” 

“This isn’t right,” Fitz shouted, struggling against the hold of the executioner assigned to him, “leave her alone –”

“Fitz,” Jemma screamed behind her as she was dragged through the door into a pitch-black hallway. 

“ _Jemma_!”

 

\------

 

The streets of Manhattan were crowded with people just beginning to head home for the day. Skye was trying to navigate her and Trip through them to the Woolworth building from their apparation spot, but it was hard to move quickly around all these people. For the umpteenth time, she wished that MACUSA had some kind of secure apparation room, to avoid needing to walk from a few blocks away. Muttering her name to catch her attention, Trip helped navigate her around a tightly knit group of muggles.

Suddenly, a scream of horror ripped through Skye’s head, blackness flashing across her vision, and she collapsed into Trip’s arms. Only one person in the whole world could project their emotions into her head when they were far away from her, and that was Fitz. Once before had she felt such a violent, stomach-roiling wash of emotion from her brother from a distance, and that had been on the day they’d received the news about their mother’s death.

“C’mon, girl, stay with me,” Trip said urgently, and she blinked her eyes open to look at him, willing the nausea to abate. Other peoples’ emotions were not something that she usually felt so strongly; but her fierce dedication to and love for her brother, blood though he may not be, meant that she often found herself reading him instinctively. The thought that his anguish had carried through buildings and multiple blocks terrified her.

“We have to hurry,” Skye rasped out, using Trip’s arm to steady herself before she began to run down the sidewalk, pushing pedestrians aside. “Fitz is in trouble.”

 

\------

 

The brightness of the cell into which the executioners dragged them nearly blinded Jemma, its white tiled walls reflecting light from an otherwise invisible source. Before them, the entryway platform gave way to an enormous basin of dark, roiling liquid, and she recoiled at was the unmistakable smell of a death potion. Silver steps led up into a hovering, matching chair above the potion, and fear washed through her again when she realized that the seat was destined for them.

“Fitz,” Jemma cried softly, drawing his attention from where he was being pushed ahead of her. “I’m so sorry, I never meant for you – for any of this to happen.” 

Tears shimmering in the corners of his eyes, he gave her an encouraging smile that elicited physical pain in her chest. She imagined that the feeling was rather like what would happen were hearts actually able to break. 

Two wizards flanked Fitz while the third held her own arms behind her, preventing her struggling from having any effect. As she realized that her protests were being ignored by the MACUSA wizards in whose custody they would die, she let her movements slow. Beneath a disconcerting humming noise that filled the room, a distinct chittering drew her attention, and Jemma almost fainted in relief when she saw the bowtruckle peeking its head out from her vest pocket. Although she’d returned him to his habitat long ago, he must have jumped back onto her coat when she wasn’t looking. She stilled her movements further, until the MACUSA guard let go of her arms, and then raised her eyebrows at Picket. Once the spindly creature had made sure no one was looking, he crawled up her vest and began to make his way down her arms, so as to pick the lock of her handcuffs. Thank goodness, Jemma thought, that the shackles weren’t made of magic.

“It’s alright, honey,” one of the executioners said to Fitz as she held the tip of her wand to his temple. “It don’t hurt.”

A long strand of memories stretched out as she pulled the wand away, and with a flick she tossed them into the potion that filled the room. The liquid transformed into something like a room-sized pensieve, and as blurry images rose to the surface, a hearty, fond laugh bubbled out of the potion.

“ _C’mon, Leo!_ ” The face of a woman with long, dusty-blonde curls emerged in the potion, holding her arms out. Her grin was so wide it was infectious, causing Jemma to fight the urge to smile back in kind. “ _Come here_....”

“Mum?” Fitz whispered, tears rolling down his cheeks as joy and relief lit his features. 

“ _That’s it_ ,” his mother’s image said, and the executioners, taking advantage of the spell’s magic, subtly pushed him towards the eerie, floating steps. “ _Come to mummy, Leo!”_

A toddler in rompers with blond curls to match hers came gamboling into the picture, laughing as his mother scooped him into her arms. The image flashed out, replaced by others of Fitz’s mother twirling to music in a cramped living room, of teenager Skye with frosting on her nose, of Fitz himself being applauded by a room of wizards at some sort of award ceremony. His most treasured memories were being used to lure him to his death, and Jemma found her own tears escaping as she watched, powerless to do anything until the bowtruckle had accomplished its task. 

As Fitz slid into the chair, the executioner magicked away first his shackles and then the stairs. But as the metal objects disappeared, the executioner flinched and Fitz’s handcuffs went wheeling into the potion. Black flashed across the surface as memories of a different tone took hold. Before new images emerged, a man’s voice echoed through the chamber: “ _Stupid, worthless boy. What’re you good for? Nothing. Not good enough for anything._ ” Fitz flinched at the sound, cowering from the memory of someone whose face the potion didn’t even dare to recreate, instead fading into different scenes altogether.

A bright blue sky lorded over a somber gathering of wizards dressed in head-to-toe black, with Fitz stepping away from the crowd as Skye fled, sobbing, into a gathering of trees.

A bedroom, clothes strewn over the floor and halfway into a suitcase, as Skye and Fitz stood shouting at each other. “ _She loved you, Daisy! Just as much as if you were her –_ ”

Skye slammed the suitcase closed, eyes red-rimmed as she glared back at him. “ _But I’m_ not.”

The image flashed to that of a severe-looking man – that Jemma thought she recognized – as he glared down at a sallow-faced teenager, while Fitz looked on from across the street. In the next second, they were in a dark, grimy room, and the man had his hand raised to strike the boy. Fitz’s shouted spell threw the man into the wall, and the scene flashed to the boy crying, bent over his own knees as Fitz put a hesitant, comforting arm around his shoulder.

Then the potion cut to Fitz handing over his Auror badge to a disappointed Coulson. The next memory showed Skye standing, rain drenched, in the doorway of her and Fitz’s childhood apartment, her hair cut short and a ratty suitcase by her feet. Without saying a word, Fitz wrapped his sister in his arms, his own shoulders shaking as her whole body was wracked with sobs.

Suddenly, Jemma felt her own shackles loosen around her wrist, and she almost sagged to her knees in relief. Instead, she made sure that the guards and executioners were looking elsewhere before she tucked the bowtruckle into her pocket and then reached inside for the small, warm creature waiting inside her jacket. 

She made sure her hands were pressed together again when the executioners turned back to her, the cuffs clinging deceptively to her wrists. Just as the two wizards reached her, however, Jemma flung out the hand with the creature inside, the swooping evil releasing into the air with a loud screech. The bird-like creature startled both wizards enough that Jemma was able to elbow one in the face before withdrawing the swooping evil into its curled, miniature form, and then she tackled the second executioner. In the scuffle, Jemma managed to grab onto one of their wands, finally able to use magic to stun the rest of the wizards in the room – other than Fitz.

At the sound of the fighting, he had awoken from his trance and begun to stand, only to realize that the chair was sinking towards the potion, now a glistening, toxic black. He swore, scrambling up onto the seat, and looked up at the sound of Jemma’s voice.

“Don’t panic,” she shouted, and then flung the swooping evil high into the air. The animal began to wheel around Fitz’s chair, following its slow descent towards the potion. “Jump onto the bird!”

“Are you out of your _bloody mind_?!”

“You have to trust me!” The gulf between them seemed to widen, the chair itself starting to shrink as it lowered further and further. “I promise, I’ll catch you!” 

Fitz shook his head, eyes wide as he watched the bottom stand of the chair reach the potion and begin to melt with a frightening hiss. “This is insane!”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Giving his nose a fetching little wrinkle, he shook his head. “So, jump! Now!”

Screwing up his face, Fitz made an ungainly leap for the swooping evil’s back, pushing immediately off to crash straight into Jemma. With a sharp twist, she angled them away from the edge and onto the floor, both of them landing hard on the marble platform. Fitz let out a pained hiss as he pushed himself to his elbows above Jemma, and they both glanced down to where the executioners’ potion had burned a long streak down the outside of his left arm.

“Christ,” he muttered, looking up to meet her eyes.

“See,” she said, still breathing heavily, “got you.”

For a moment, as they lay there panting against each other on the floor, Jemma thought that Fitz was about to kiss her. His eyes flickered down to her lips and back up, adrenaline surging through them both, and she thought that, really, she wouldn’t mind if that was how he chose to thank her. 

“I owe you,” he said at last, and she gave him a tight smile in response.

When she stuck her hand out to the side and let out a loud trill, the swooping evil soared directly into her palm, and she tucked it back into her jacket pocket as she and Fitz scrambled to their feet. Once they’d collected all the wands they could find, Jemma reached out for him and they sprinted to the door, hand grabbing tightly onto hand.

 

\------

 

After fighting past another two MACUSA guards, Jemma and Fitz made their way through the winding, deserted halls of the building’s lower levels. For the moment, the alarms had not been sounded throughout the ministry at their escape, but they didn’t know how long that would last. When they had dueled the guards, they’d needed to release each other’s hands, and she found herself missing the comfort of knowing without looking that someone was beside her the whole time.

As they rounded another corner, Jemma let out a small squeak as they nearly crashed into two people. Fortunately, these two people were not MACUSA guards, but Skye and Trip, holding Fitz and Jemma’s wands and her suitcase, respectively. Letting out a wordless cry of joy, Skye threw her arms around Fitz’s shoulders, squeezing tight and burying her face in his neck.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked, pulling away and glancing at the muggle.

“Keeping you safe,” Skye mumbled, swiping hurriedly at her eyes before handing them their wands. Once they were each armed with their own, she took the case from Trip and put it on the floor, sliding it towards them. “Get in.”

 

\------

 

Just over half an hour later, the three passengers climbed out of Jemma’s case and into the safe confines of Skye and Fitz’s apartment. Fortunately, the alarms had only begun to sound as she’d been striding out of MACUSA and into the muggle crowds on the street. Ward would come looking for them before long, but the apartment was already protected by spells, and he was unlikely to search them out here first. This gave them all some time to take stock – and for Jemma to tend to Fitz’s wound.

After mixing a healing poultice at her workstation in the case, she found him sitting alone on the building’s fire escape, staring moodily out at the skyscrapers bathed in the setting sun. She couldn’t blame him for wanting some alone time after having been forced to relive some of the strongest memories of his life right before believing he was about to die. So, Jemma gave the window a hesitant knock, waiting for him to wave her over before she pushed it open and climbed through.

“I have something for your arm,” she said quietly. When he just stared up at her, she pointed to his coat and shirt. “These off, please.” 

“Oh, right.” Standing, he turned awkwardly away to shed his outer two layers, the small landing of the fire escape making those few moments seem far more intimate than they should have. Once he was down to his undershirt, suspenders hanging down over his hips, she gestured for him to sit back down and then seated herself one stair above him. 

“I never said....” He rested one hand on hers, stopping her as she began to unravel the gauze she’d brought along with the poultice. “Thank you. For saving me.” 

“Oh,” Jemma said, cheeks flushing as she stared down at him. The warmth with which he regarded her at that moment sent her pulse racing, and she couldn’t think of anything to say other than: “I couldn’t very well leave you down there, could I?”

“A lot of people would’ve.” His fingers tightened around hers. “So, thanks.”

Ducking her head, she reached out for his left arm, stretching it across her knees for easier examination. With his forearm exposed, she waved her wand over the raw, puckered flesh, trying to ascertain the seriousness of the injury before she began treating it.

“Could you see them?” Blinking up at him, Jemma just tilted her head at Fitz as he inhaled and dropped his gaze. “The memories. In the cell.”

“Oh. Yes, I – I could see them. Or, parts of them. It wasn’t a traditional pensieve, of course, so I don’t know how much it reflected.”

“Right. Right then.”

In her peripheral vision, she could see his jaw clench, and opted not to pry with the dozen or so questions she had about what she’d seen. At least, not right away. For a few moments, she worked in silence. Around them, the sun melted from daylight into deeper, dusky hues of orange and pink, tendrils of nighttime stretching above the city’s brick and mortar buildings.

“She wasn’t leaving because of our mum.” Fitz didn’t meet Jemma’s gaze, instead turning his eyes to the apartment’s window. Inside, Skye was just visible across the room, pacing as she explained something to Trip. “I mean, she was, but – I don’t think she knew what to do when Mum died. Daisy had just found her birthparents, and then there was Mum’s accident, and... it’s not her fault.”

Jemma studied him as he watched his sister inside their apartment, and a soft smile spread across her face. Of all the things about those memories that he could have chosen to defend, he’d wanted to make sure that she didn’t think badly of his sister.

“Then she went to find them,” he continued, words tumbling out as if a dam had burst, as if he’d been just waiting to find someone to share this with, “and something _happened_. She won’t tell me what, but then she comes back and she won’t talk about it, and she wants to be Skye again, and... that’s what Mum called her when we were kids, you see. Skye. Joked that she was ‘the prettiest isle a girl ever did see.’” The memory made him smile, although it faded quickly. “I don’t... before she died, Mum never told me the whole story of how she’d found Skye’s orphanage, but when you were talking about obscurials before... I’d learned what they were, course, but I’d never....” He huffed out a breath, and she lowered her wand, distracted by the concern written on his face. “I think before Mum found her, and adopted her... I think Skye was almost an obscurial. She was so bloody unhappy in that orphanage, and the kids tormented her anytime something went wrong, y’know, they blamed her for everything. The mind reading didn’t help.”

Processing that information, Jemma reached for the poultice and dabbed a small amount on the end of Fitz’s wound. He hissed sharply and almost drew his arm away, but she held firm to his wrist. “Sorry,” she said, giving him a rueful wince. “It’ll sting.” As she continued, he let out a slow, shaky breath, watching her work. “So you think your mum adopted her –”

“To save her. Yeah. I didn’t put the pieces together until today, but....”

“She’s a hero, Fitz.” Jemma gave him a warm smile, pausing as he cringed at a new dab of the poultice.

“Yeah,” he whispered, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “She was. And I...” He let out a low, dark laugh, rolling his eyes up to the blood-orange sky. “Wish I could’ve done nearly as well, myself.” 

“That’s what you were trying to do. That memory, with the Second Salem boy.”

Nodding, his face contorted in another wince as she began to wrap the gauze around the wound. “His father was beating him. Anytime anything went wrong. I’d been doing a routine check on them, as an anti-magic group, and I saw him hitting him with his belt, and I just....” Fitz made a sharp gesture with his unoccupied hand. “I couldn’t just stand by, y’know? I couldn’t, he isn’t older’n fifteen. I shouldn’t’ve attacked Quinn, I know, but....”

“You did the right thing.” Jemma tucked the end of the bandage inside what had already been wrapped, but kept her hands on his arm. Scooting even closer in, she told herself she was providing him comfort just as much as she was prolonging their contact. But even so, she didn’t quite believe her own excuse, as something unfamiliar and a little strange was beginning to build in her chest, a pull towards Fitz that she didn’t entirely understand and yet wanted desperately to give into. 

Fitz let out a derisive scoff, looking away from her again. If she wasn’t mistaken, the shimmer in his eyes was not entirely thanks to the setting sun. “Did I? MACUSA has strict rules about interfering in ‘no-maj business,’ so they wiped everyone’s memory and put Donnie back exactly where he was. They can’t do anything ‘cause Quinn’s legally his father, and it’s just....” He slapped his other hand against his leg. “A kid’s being abused and they won’t bloody _do_ anything. And they’re tracking me now, so I can’t go anywhere near Donnie again. Most I can do is just watch Quinn, wait until he does something I can use to report him to the muggle police.”

“That’s why you were demoted.”

He nodded again, defeat written so plainly on his features that it made her heart ache. “And punished. ‘Til I know better than to _interfere_. I just....” With a shaky exhale, Fitz finally met her eyes again, his expression at once hopeless and defiant and breathtakingly sad. “I just thought I could help him. Since no one else was. Isn’t that why we _have_ magic? To make the world a better place?” 

Before she could question herself, Jemma found herself sliding her hands up to cup Fitz’s jaw and leaning down to press their lips together. Her response to his confession was illogical and inappropriate, and she knew that, but any words she’d said would not have been enough. Despite the danger they had faced together today and the danger that had yet to pass, she felt sure that there was something more to the feelings that stirred within her the longer she spent with Fitz. As a child, she’d been intrigued by him as she had been by no one else at Hogwarts, and now she suspected that she would only continued to yearn for that amorphous _more_. So she kissed him on a wrought iron fire escape in the middle of a Manhattan sunset, fingers curling up into his hair and head tilting to fit their mouths properly together.

On the step beneath her, she could feel him stiffen in surprise, but it only took him seconds and a brief inhale before he responded in kind, removing the bandaged arm from between them so that he could tug her forward by her waist. His lips were soft and careful as they moved beneath hers, and when she brushed her tongue against the seam of his mouth, he let out a low sigh. The first touch of their tongues sent warmth spreading through her whole body, in contrast to the chill of the twilight air, and Jemma found herself forgetting that she’d almost died that afternoon. All she could remember were the movements of Fitz’s lips against hers, the pressure of his fingers against her skin.


	6. Chapter 6

The ramshackle headquarters of the New Salem Philanthropic Society had been blown apart by a force unseen, and within its ruins sat Donnie Gill, shivering and curled over himself. Perhaps if he made himself small enough, he would simply disappear.

“Did you find the child?” Ward crouched in front of Donnie, forcing him to raise his tearful gaze.

“Help me,” Donnie rasped, and received a stinging slap for his plea.

“Did you find the child?” Something moved in the rubble beyond where Donnie sat, and Ward whipped his head around, chiseled jaw highlighted in the fading sunlight. “Are your sisters here?” Donnie gave his head a pathetic nod, sniveling as the tears continued to escape, and Ward pushed himself onto his feet. “It must be one of them. I’m done with you.” 

“W-what?”

Sparing the boy a withering glance, Ward adjusted the collar of his coat. “You’re a squib, Donnie. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“But you said – you said you could teach me....” 

“You can’t _learn_ magic. You’re not worth anyone’s time.”

As Ward strode away through the ruined house, stepping coolly over the dead body of Ian Quinn, Donnie’s thin form was wracked by violent tremors. His every thought for the past two months had been fixated on getting out, on getting help, on being taught how to magic himself fat from the hell that was the poor underbelly of New York City. On the man who he’d come to think of as an older brother, a father, the man who would take him away from the cruel people who didn’t, couldn’t, would never understand him. 

A tormented scream wrenched itself from Donnie’s throat, and in the space between heartbeats he shattered into a thousand shards of darkness, whirling through the air to take vengeance upon a world that would not let him be and upon the man who had ripped his hope away.

 

\------

 

Dumbstruck was the only word that could describe Fitz when Jemma pressed her lips to his on that fire escape. In seconds he was moving, he was kissing her back, he was tangling his fingers in her hair and holding tight to her waist, but there was no logical thought in his brain. All he knew was the taste of her on his tongue and the softness of her skin, the smell of her so near and yet not near enough. When she finally broke away for air, leaning her forehead against his and blinking down at him upon a smile, he lost his breath once again. Her eyes shone in the setting sun, brown irises flecked with iridescent gold, and he was quite sure he’d never seen anything so stunning. Instead of trying to get his thoughts back in order, he stretched up to kiss her once again, framing her face with his hands and trying to impress upon her with his lips just how amazing he found her. Laughing into his kiss, Jemma let him, sighing as his lips parted hers in a way that made a very different and distracting kind of heat spread through his veins. 

“You really _are_ interesting,” she murmured against his mouth.

For another few seconds, he neglected to process her words, too busy memorizing the shape and taste of her lips. Then Fitz came back to himself, blinking his eyes open to stare up at her, half in wonderment and half out of curiosity. “What?” 

“I always knew,” she said, tracing her fingers along the curve of his stubble, “that you were the second smartest person in our year. Right off, I found you interesting. But this is....” She trailed off, dragging her thumb over the curve of his bottom lip and sending a jolt through his whole body. “A very different kind of interesting.” 

“That’s one way of putting it,” he muttered, and couldn’t help but smile as she broke into a laugh.

“I can’t believe I used to think you being a hatstall was the most interesting thing I’d ever seen,” she teased. As she spoke, she scooted close enough that she could wind her arms around his neck, brushing their noses together, and, well, he almost hated to have to speak and interrupt the moment. “This is much better.”

“ _Almost_ a hatstall,” he corrected. “Almost.” 

“I’ve always wondered,” she mused, studying his face intently, “what was the other house?”

“Hufflepuff. For a second I thought it was gonna be a threeway tie between Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Gryffindor, but the Hat rejected that one almost right away.” He grinned at the thoughtful hum she made in response, her fingers fiddling with the short hairs at the back of his neck. “Wouldn’t tell me why, though.” 

“What tipped it over? To Ravenclaw, I mean.” 

“I asked.” Rolling his eyes, Fitz smoothed his hand up and down her side, taking supreme pleasure in the way her muscles twitched at his touch. “Begged, to be honest. I couldn’t – it was the only house to _be_ in, y’know? I _had_ to be clever enough to get in. Just had to.” His brows furrowed as he thought back to the eleven-year-old he'd been back then, to the desperation he'd felt with the weight of the centuries-old Sorting Hat upon his head. "My dad, he... before he left, he used to say I wasn't. Smart enough, I mean. So if I got into Ravenclaw, then... then I'd be enough. I'd show him." He let out a low chuckle, dropping his gaze as he felt pin-pricks at the corners of his eyes. "Not that he ever knew anyway."

Jemma tilted her head as she watched him, the softness to her expression absolutely captivating him. Even though they hadn’t seen each other in years, and had barely spoken even when classmates, holding each other in this way felt like the most natural thing in the world. Fitz didn’t even care that his bum was sort of losing feeling from sitting on the wrought iron stairs for so long. He’d gladly lose the feeling in multiple limbs just to kiss her again.

“Fortunately,” she said, leaning down to brush their noses together, “you were more than smart enough. If a bit quiet and pasty –”

“Oi!”

“And quite handsome.” 

Fitz swallowed, eyes dipping to her mouth as she leaned in. “Oh,” he breathed against her mouth, lips parting at the barest pressure from hers, and he would swear that the groan that rumbled between them didn’t come from his chest. But, as ever, his brain wandered away from him, reminding him of their situation and of the fact that she lived on a different continent and... of the fact that they barely knew each other. Even if it felt like they’d known each other for their whole lives.

“Jemma,” he whispered, breaking away to meet her eyes, “what’re we doing?”

She wrinkled her nose in an infinitely adorable way as she answered, and he reached up to tuck hair behind her ear. “Well, we _were_ kissing –”

“No, I mean –” 

“And before that, I was bandaging your arm –”

“I mean _us_. This.”

“Is now really the time to discuss that?” Not meeting his gaze, she let her arms loosen around his shoulders. “Technically, we’re on the run from a crooked MACUSA Auror, and we need to find the source of a –” 

A horrendous roar echoed across the city below them, and they both twisted around to see something amorphous and dark rampaging through the streets in the twilight.

Jemma swallowed. “A dark magical force that has the potential to upend the entire world.”

“And kill people.”

She tutted and gave him a dry look. “I rather thought I covered that with ‘the entire world.’” 

“Doesn’t hurt to be specific,” he said, reluctantly letting his arms drop from her as the window creaked open behind them. 

“What was that?” Skye peered over at them, raising a knowing eyebrow as she watched Jemma separate from Fitz and stand.

“An obscurus,” Jemma murmured, leaning on the railing overlooking the city. Another roar echoed through the buildings, and, many streets away, Fitz could just barely make out a roiling cloud of destruction speeding down an alleyway.

“Aw hell,” Trip said from behind them. He helped Skye up onto the fire escape before following her, all of them moving to stand around Jemma, as if that would help them see far across the city. 

In seconds, an explosion rocked a faraway building, and the dark, shifting cloud of the obscurus erupted from the street, crawling over rooftops and leaving destruction in its wake.

“I’ve never heard of one that powerful....” Jemma trailed off, voice unsteady, and when she turned to the building Fitz thought he caught a glimpse of tears. After clambering quickly into the apartment, she returned with her case, eyes dry but with something else a little more disconcerting lurking in her expression.

“Fitz,” she said quietly, stepping up into his space and wrapping his hands around the suitcase’s handle. “If I don’t come back, look after my creatures.” 

“Don’t come back from where?” Unsure of what she was doing, he just stood there as she fished something else from her jacket pockets.

“And Frank already likes you, which is half the battle.”

As he stood there and watched the most amazing woman he’d ever known fumble with a leather-bound notebook and her wand, understanding dawned on him. Somehow, she looked much smaller than she had earlier, her stature shrinking as the likelihood of her fate came crashing down around them both. “Jemma, no –” 

She pressed the notebook into his hand. “Everything you need to know is in there.”

“You can’t just –”

“I won’t let them kill it.” Squeezing his hand as it clutched the book, she gave him a watery nod of determination. “Not this time.”

Without another word she whipped her wand up overhead and disapparated.

“ _Jemma!_ ” There was, of course, no answer. As Fitz instinctively reached out to grab onto the railing next to where she’d stood only seconds before, he knew he had to go after her. The obscurus they’d just seen rampaging through the city was far too powerful for her to handle alone, no matter her experience, and he couldn’t bear the thought of anything bad happening to her.

Quickly, Fitz turned around and shoved both the notebook and the suitcase into Skye’s hands. “Look after them.” With that, he apparated after Jemma as fast as he could wave his wand.

 

\------

 

“Fitz, no –!” Automatically, Skye reached for her brother as he disapparated, hand closing over thin air. Letting out a noise of frustration, she turned to Trip and shoved the suitcase and leather notebook at him. “Take these –”

“Hold up,” he said, wrapping one hand around hers over the suitcase’s handle. When she tugged back, he just held on tighter. “You can’t go.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” she bit out, prepared to get violent if she had to in order to get to her brother, but then she caught a flash of something pained from Trip. She’d been working consciously all day to avoid reading his thoughts, but this burst of feeling was so potent that it crashed over her already flimsy mental barrier. 

“I’m not trying to do that.” His voice was earnest, eyes wide in the darkening outdoors. “I wanna come with you.”

“But we can’t, the – the creatures....” Trying to focus on getting to Fitz, Skye dropped her gaze, but all she could hear were the thoughts radiating out from Trip's head.

_I don’t want you to get hurt, I don’t want you to get hurt, I don’t want you to get hurt...._

“If they don’t come back,” she managed, clearing her throat and trying to give no sign that she’d overheard, “someone needs to take care of these creatures. They’ll die.” 

“You think I know how to do that?” He loosened his hold on her enough to point at the wand holster hanging from her gemstone-studded belt. “You’re the one with magic.”

Her nose wrinkled at the logic to his point, and she tried to come up with any point against it. Skye was a woman of action by nature, and to sit back and wait for Fitz to return was directly in opposition to every one of her instincts. Besides – what if he needed her help? Before she could think of anything else, though, more of Trip’s thoughts projected into her head, and all the breath left her lungs in a _whoosh_. 

 _Please don’t leave, I might love you, please don’t leave, I might love you, it’s impossible, but I might love you, please don’t leave...._  

Staring up at Trip, she moved the hand holding the case away from his to press against his cheek. “I’ve never met someone like you,” she murmured, eyes roaming over his face.

A sharp wind gusted against them as they stood toe-to-toe on the fire escape, the city’s nightlife coming alive on the streets below them. It _was_ impossible, Skye thought to herself, for her to feel this way after barely twenty-four hours, but maybe, just maybe, she might love Trip back.

 

\------

 

When Jemma apparated into a street she’d guessed would be in the obscurus’ path, the sounds and sights of destruction immediately surrounded her in a screaming, seething melee. Muggles streamed past, and she turned to squint through the smoke of nearby fires.

At the apex of the Y-bend on Broadway, a dark mass sped up the eight story building, shedding bricks and glass in its wake. Jemma’s blood ran cold; that was definitely an obscurus, and it had to be at least three times as large as the one she’d captured in Bahrain. The shadowy mass was the size of at least two full fire lorries and had no apparent goal, instead just moving unpredictably in one direction and then turning abruptly in the other. Knowing that getting the obscurus to return to its human form was her only shot at saving him or her, Jemma began to run in the direction of the smoke monster.

A human figure appeared in the center of the street, causing Jemma to stumble in surprise. The man’s back was turned to her, but when he yelled up at the obscurus, she knew immediately who he was. 

“Donnie!” Ward watched as the dark mass halted its progress and seemed to turn towards him, a constant scream howling from its depths. “To survive this long with this burning inside you – it’s a miracle! You’re a miracle! Come with me – imagine what we’d achieve together!”

Jemma squinted, raising her hand to shield her eyes from flames’ glare. If she was not mistaken, she recognized the face that flashed briefly into view within the midst of the roiling force.

With a furious roar, the obscurus twisted up into the air and then rampaged away down one of the north-heading streets, ripping building fronts from their frames and causing more pedestrians to flee in fear.

In Jemma’s peripheral vision, she caught sight of a familiar figure running out from an alleyway, panting and frantic, and her pulse spiked. For the briefest of moments, Leo Fitz was the most magnificent thing she’d ever seen. In the next second, she felt a flash of anger that he’d needlessly run headlong into danger after her. When he caught sight of her through the crowd and their eyes met, however, all she felt was the pull to be by his side. 

“Jemma!” He shouted this through the mass of people, pushing between them until they could grasp at each other’s arms. “I thought –”

“It’s the Second Salem boy,” she said, both of them ducking instinctively as another crash from the broken buildings sounded nearby. “The one you were – Donnie, right? His name was Donnie? He’s the obscurial.”

“Donnie.” Fitz’s face went ashen, and he stared in the direction the monster had disappeared. “He had magic... all... oh, I’m so _stupid_ –!”

“No,” she said, cutting him off and giving his coat sleeve a sharp tug. “No, stop that–” 

“You have to go.” Fitz met her gaze again, determination shimmering in the deep navy of his eyes. “You’re the only one who knows enough about obscurials, he needs you.” 

Panic darted through Jemma; she may know the most, but did she know enough? She swallowed. “He’s in the subway.” 

Before she knew what was happening, Fitz pulled her flush against him and angled her lips open with his for a fierce kiss, working his mouth over hers as if it was a passionate greeting or the most desperate goodbye. 

“Fitz,” she murmured, scrunching her fingers too hard into his hair, “I–” 

“Save the boy.” He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing their foreheads together as if they could fuse to each other and never be parted. “Go,” Fitz said again, voice steadier as he brushed his lips against hers one more time and then tore himself from her grasp to sprint across the square towards Ward.

“Ward!” Wand already out, Fitz threw a spell that the taller wizard deflected without even turning. 

“Fitz.” Turning with a sneer, Ward returned a spell that Fitz neatly dodged. “Always showing up when you aren’t wanted.” 

As she watched them begin to battle in earnest, Jemma had to fight her own instinct to help defend Fitz. But he was right – she was the orphan boy’s best chance at survival.

With one last look at Fitz, building up her own courage by remembering that he had come after her once already, she turned and ran towards a nearby subway entrance. All her energy now needed to be dedicated to saving the boy.

 

\-----

 

Apparently, the greater size of the obscurus, the further its anguish carried outside of its body. As Jemma stood in the empty subway tunnel, watching the dark, smoky mass climb over tile and track, she could physically feel the pain that radiated from the boy within the magic. 

“Donnie,” she tried again, having had little success so far in convincing him to listen to her. “Can I talk to you? I’d just like to talk to you, face to face. Is that okay?”

Slowly, the dark cloud crawled down the wall, feeding itself wave by wave into a condensed shape until the form of the teenage orphan boy emerged, whole and shivering with his arms around his knobby knees.

“There,” she breathed, stepping slowly over the subway tracks, “there, that’s better. Can I come over to you, Donnie? Is that okay?” 

Footsteps echoed against the tiles, and they both whipped their heads around to see Fitz sprinting towards them from the opposite end of the tunnel. 

“Fitz,” Jemma whispered, waving him over. 

Eyes focused on her, Fitz took a few hurried steps forward until he halted at the sight of Donnie. “Hey,” he said quietly, making a show of tucking his wand back into its holster. “Been a while, mate.” 

Unable to speak through the tears that poured silently down his cheeks, Donnie just stared at him, no recognition lighting his face. After all, MACUSA had wiped his memory of the kind young wizard who had tried to save him. 

“It’s good to....” Pulling even with Jemma on the tracks, Fitz trailed off at the sound of other, louder footsteps striding down one of the entranceways towards them.

Ward appeared against the cream-and-olive tile, coat billowing in the air as he took in the scene before him. “Donnie, come with me.”

Ignoring the corrupt wizard, Jemma focused her attention on the boy, whose face twisted into a mask of rage and despair at the sight of his betrayer.

“Don’t listen to him, Donnie,” Fitz tried, but Ward spoke over him. 

“You’re meant to be by my side, Donnie, don’t you feel it?”

With a piercing scream, Donnie’s human form erupted once again into the swirling mass of horror that was the obscurus, launching itself forward. Ward dodged its onslaught, diving onto the tile platform as the dark force hurled itself above him and crashed headlong into the wall, sending the lights flickering and debris flying.

“Watch out!”

A new voice flung through the darkness behind them, and before Jemma could even turn, Fitz pushed her down to her knees on the ground beside himself. Above them, a wave of spells soared above their heads, heading straight for the obscurus. 

“No!” Jemma shouted, scrambling to her feet and turning around. Behind her stood President Fury and a whole cadre of Aurors, aiming spells directly at Donnie. “Stop! He’s just a child!”

But the spells hit their mark as she yelled, and she flinched as an explosion rocked the tunnel. Clinging to the ceiling, the dark mass of the obscurus shivered and rippled, and as a fireball consumed it from within, Jemma could hear Donnie screaming. With a flash, the tunnel returned to darkness, only two electric lights left flickering alongside the passenger benches.

“No,” she whispered again, eyes filling with tears. Movement beside her caught her eye, and she turned to where Fitz was staring up at the ruined ceiling. His eyes shimmered in the dim light, bottom lip wavering as he tried to keep grief at bay, and without thinking Jemma flung her arms around his shoulders.

“He was only fifteen.” Fitz’s voice was quiet and hollow, and she dug her fingers harder into his coat. “He was only fifteen,” he repeated, louder this time – loudly enough that Fury actually turned to look at them. Jemma pulled back to watch the President staring at them, as if their presence was both a surprise and a nuisance. “That wasn’t a _creature_ to be put down, that was a fifteen-year-old _boy_!” 

“And that boy was this close to destroying the entire damn city!” Fury yelled back, shoving his wand inelegantly into his long, dark coat. “He _did_ reveal the wizarding community to the entire muggle povulation, and I dunno how we’re gonna put a top back on _that_ bottle!”

One of the other Aurors gave a shout, and they all turned to see Ward being fought back into the main tunnel by someone in one of the entry staircases. After a few spells were fired, Coulson appeared amidst the flashing lights, furiously pushing Ward back towards the other Aurors and preventing his escape.

Fitz lunged forward, going straight for Ward, but before he’d gone more than two steps, a tall, blonde Auror threw a binding spell over their heads. In seconds, Ward was trapped by steel ropes, crashing to hard to the concrete platform. Slowing to a stop, Fitz curled one hand into a fist as he watched Coulson go to Ward and yank him to his feet.

Without saying anything, Jemma switched her wand to her non-dominant hand and slipped up alongside Fitz to wrap her hand around his. He flinched, surprised to be touched, but relaxed as soon as their eyes met. “He...” Fitz started brokenly, and she nodded.

“I know.” She uncurled his fist so that she could entwine their fingers, and, after a pause, he gave her hand a small squeeze.

“ _Revelio_ ,” Coulson said sharply, and Jemma whipped her head around to see Ward’s chiseled face fade into one that she knew all too well. Papers across the world had been warning of John Garrett for months, and now, it seemed, she was standing in the very same tunnel as him.

“Garrett.”

The broad-shouldered man grinned at Fury as Coulson and the blonde woman frog-marched him towards an exit. “Do you think you can hold me?” 

“We’ll do our best,” Fury replied drily, watching with his one good eye as Garrett disappeared with the blonde woman and another two Aurors.

“He’ll be trying to get back to Grindlewald,” Coulson said, stepping up to Fury, who let out a small scoff in response.

“Trying, Coulson, is the important word there.” Noises sounded through the subway station, and Fury rubbed one hand against his forehead. “That crowd up there ain’t getting any smaller.”

“President Fury,” Jemma said, unintentionally tugging Fitz along with her as she stepped forward to get the others’ attention. “I think I may have a solution for that.”

Fury raised an eyebrow. “You have a way to make an entire city forget about magic?” 

She smiled. “I rather think I might. I just need to get my case.”

The President sighed and gave her a weary wave. “Alright, guess it won’t make anything worse.” He squinted at her. “It won’t, will it?” 

“No, sir.”

“Good.” As he started to turn towards the group of Aurors, Fury caught sight of Fitz standing beside her. “You. Weren’t you sent to the wand permit office?”

“Fitz,” Coulson jumped in, smoothly interrupting Fitz’s assuredly unprepared excuses, “was invaluable here today. The obscurial would’ve been unmanageable without him.” 

Jemma frowned at the veteran Auror’s words; he couldn’t possibly have known whether Fitz had been of help or not. But as Fury turned to regard Fitz, Coulson caught Jemma’s eye and gave her a subtle headshake. It seemed the Auror was well aware that he didn’t know what Fitz had been doing before his own late entrance – but Fury didn’t need to know that.

“And if you had listened to Fitz in the first place,” Jemma couldn’t resist adding, little though her vote might count, “then Donnie might not have become an obscurial at all.”

Fitz’s fingers tightened in hers, but she ignored him, instead focusing on Fury.

Letting out a dismissive noise, Fury waved his hand in between Coulson and Fitz. “Fine, you can put him back with the Aurors. But he can’t go off the reservation again, we’ve got procedures for that sorta thing.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Coulson said, tossing a small smile in Fitz’s direction

“And you,” Fury added, pointing at Jemma. “After you do your mumbojumbo with that case, if it works, you have seventy-two hours to leave New York, understood? America mIgor owe you a great debt, but we don’t wanna pay it on our soil. I don’t even know how many goddamn laws you’ve broken by now.”

“No, sir,” she said quietly, something clenching in her chest as she watched the President stride into the train tunnel followed by the group of Aurors. Jemma knew she should be grateful to Fury for not arresting her, but she couldn’t help the feeling of distinct upset at having to leave the city so soon after finding a real reason to be there.

“Jemma Simmons,” came Fitz’s voice to her side, “law-breaker.” She turned to meet his eyes, a bracing smile on his face as he teased her, and she let out a small laugh. “Y’know, I seem to remember you sorta liking rules when we were at school.” 

“I’ve changed a bit since then,” she replied, glancing down at where their hands were still clasped tight.

“Guess I can’t complain about that.” His tone was fond, and she almost stretched up right then to kiss him again, nearly forgetting about the tragedy that they’d just witnessed or the fact that there were still other people there. 

“Hey, Fitz.” Coulson jogged up to them, tucking his wand into his shoulder holster, and at last Jemma released Fitz’s hand. “Mack told me there’s a muggle. One you guys lost at the bank earlier?” 

Fitz’s shoulders sunk nearly indiscernibly. “Yes, sir.”

“You’ve gotta obliviate him.” Coulson gave the two of them a sad, matter-of-fact headshake. “I’m sorry, but that’s the way it’s gotta be. Once we’ve dealt with the muggles in the streets. Understood?” 

“Yes, sir,” Jemma and Fitz said in unison this time, glancing at each other in surprise. 

Arching one eyebrow, Coulson turned to catch up to the other group of Aurors. With a low exhale, Jemma moved to link arms with Fitz as she returned her wand to her dominant hand.

The angry muggle crowd, she could deal with. Obliviating their friend? That was another beast entirely.


	7. Chapter 7

Somewhere above them, Frank the thunderbird flew above the clouds, his wide, golden wings spurring the heavy thunderstorm that had been plaguing the city of New York for the past few hours. Thanks to a particularly clever spell of Fitz’s invention, the swooping evil’s venom was making the entire muggle population forget the magical events of the past twelve hours. Fortunately, due to their differing physiology, the wizarding population would not be affected.

Beneath a glass and wrought iron subway awning and flanked by Fitz, Skye, and Trip, Jemma watched muggles emerge from doorways in the predawn light. When droplets inevitably escaped their umbrella’s protection, the muggles would blink, as if they’d forgotten where they were going, and then continue on their way to work.

Rising light glowed from beneath the cloud layer, not yet hidden behind flat grey, and reflected rivers of orange sliding over the cobbled streets. Throughout the city, wizards were busy putting the finishing touches on repairing the obscurial’s destruction.

“So it’s just like falling asleep, huh?” Trip squinted out at the rain, one hand tucked casually into his trousers pocket and the other clutched between Skye’s two.

“Do we have to?” She wasn’t looking at her brother, but it was clear to them all to whom she spoke. Tears rolled haltingly down her cheeks. “We could just – we could leave New York, MACUSA –”

“Would find out,” Fitz reminded her gently, his own voice thick with sadness. “I’m sorry.”

“We all are,” Jemma added. 

Trip just shrugged and gave them both a half smile. “Yeah, I understand. I mean, not....” He waved his hand up at the clouds. “Not all of that stuff. But you’re doing your jobs. No use in me hanging around y’all anymore, taking up your time.”

“Yes, there is,” Jemma said, trying to sound gentle but coming out rather indignant. “You’re our friend.”

Something flickered in the depth of Trip’s warm, brown eyes, and he gave her a small nod. After a few seconds, he inhaled and gave the hand still held captive by Skye a gentle tug. “Time for me to go, I guess.” Pulling his hand free, he turned to look at her head on, and she raised her eyes to his, shimmering in the sun. “It was... really nice to meet you, Skye.” 

Lips pursed tightly against a sob, she could only stare back at him as silent tears continued to slide down her cheeks. Taking that as goodbye, Trip squared his shoulders and marched out into the rain. Within just a few steps, he halted and turned his face up to the sky. 

Before Fitz could stop her, Skye sprinted out into the rain after Trip, threw her arms around his shoulders, and kissed him like there would be no tomorrow. After all, for them, there wouldn’t be.

Despite her best efforts, however, he didn’t respond, his body frozen in the midst of having so much memory erased all at once. For, unlike the rest of the city’s muggle population, he had far more than a single attack to forget. Shielding himself with his coat, Fitz ran out after his sister and pulled her away from the muggle. They disappeared from the street with a ‘pop,’ leaving Jemma to watch as Trip gave his head a small shake and then turned to stride across the cobblestones in the direction of the canning factory. 

Swiping away a few of her own tears, Jemma waved her wand and winked away from the street in an instant. 

When she appeared once more in Fitz’s apartment, she was greeted by the sound of muffled sobbing, and stepped hesitantly into the living room to see brother and sister clinging to each other on their knees on the floor. Fitz was rubbing Skye’s back, neither of them having had time to remove their soaked jackets before her evident collapse onto him.

“I know,” he murmured into her hair, rocking them gently from side-to-side. “The laws aren’t fair.”

“I’m g-gonna do something,” she hic-sobbed into his shoulder. “This c-can’t – can’t be it.”

Hearing Jemma’s boots on the wooden floor, Fitz raised his eyes to her over his sister’s shoulder. Unsure what to say, she gave him a sad half-smile, and reached up to touch her shirt over her heart. For a few moments, he just watched her, thoughts she couldn’t read clearly ticking through his head, and then dropped his eyes, snugging his sister more firmly against his chest.

 

\------

 

Two days passed, and New York did seem to have forgotten entirely about the wizard battle that had raged in front of their very eyes not long before. Although Fitz spent much of his time helping with the last of the clean up and checking in on his sister, he did manage to disappear with Jemma into her case a couple of times. One night, he even had the privilege of taking her out to dinner, and he kissed her beneath his building’s awning at the end of the night. All of their time spent together, however, was tainted by the specter of her forced departure.

The morning of the third day after the destruction of the obscurial, Fitz trailed behind Jemma as she approached the gangway of the steamer she was about to take to Lisbon. She’d been acting anxious all morning, her hands tightening at her sides where she stood and her words speeding together a little too fast. He wanted to be able to soothe her, but since she’d done the cross-Atlantic trip before more than once, he wasn’t sure what was bothering her. 

“Well,” she said, stopping a few feet away from the gangway’s edge and turning towards him. “This is it.” Her smile wavered, long blue jacket fluttering as a handful of people blew past them on their way towards the ship.

“Yeah.” Fitz rocked back on his heels, wondering if he was allowed to kiss her goodbye. They hadn’t discussed what they were to each other now, or would be once she left. It had seemed too soon for that kind of conversation, even if there would be no other time to have it. 

“I’ll send you owls,” she said, and his lips quirked up at the corner. “I’ve – well, I’ve never really taken the time to send owls when I’m working before, except on my parents’ birthdays, but I’m sure there will be owlries in Lisbon. And Prague. And I....” She trailed off as he chuckled and reached out to gently wrap his hand around hers. 

“Jemma.”

“Yes,” she whispered, nodding. “Right. I should... but, I wanted to say. Thank you, Fitz.”

“For what?”

“For standing by my side. At MACUSA. The whole time.” She twisted her mouth to the side, studying his face intently. “I don’t think I ever said that.”

“No need,” he said, voice a little more gruff than he meant it. “Wouldn’t’ve done anything else.”

“It meant a lot to me. Means. You –” She jumped as the ship’s whistle sounded, and they both turned to see the ticket-taker waving her on. “Oh dear.”

Giving her head a sharp shake, she leapt forward to fling her arms around his neck, her case swinging painfully into his shoulder. Fitz ignored the jab, however, instead wrapping his arms around her as tightly as possible, burying his face in her hair.

“I’ll miss you,” he mumbled.

The whistle sounded again, and she pulled away, sniffling and blinking quickly as she caught her bearings. After giving him a quick nod, Jemma hurried up the gangway, and he thought he caught a glimpse of her swiping at her cheeks with her free hand. 

Just before she reached the ticket-taker, she paused. Then turned around. Then she shook her head, and pivoted towards the entrance. And then, to Fitz’s confusion, she turned and sprinted back down the gangway and right up to Fitz.

“Come with me.” Her eyes were shining, a breathless smile gracing her lips, in stark contrast to the morose, nervous mood she’d been in all morning.

Fitz glanced between her and the ticket-takers, who were muttering angrily to each other. “What?”

“Come with me,” Jemma said again, putting down her case and reaching forward to take both of his hands in her own. “We work so well together, Fitz, I would love to have you by my side as I finish my book.”

“But,” he said, swallowing, “you don’t need me for –”

“No,” she scoffed, “of course not. But I... quite think I’d like you there. It would be so much fun, Fitz, you’d love it – traveling, seeing the world. We could learn so much together.” 

As he stared into her eyes, the sun catching streaks of honey in her brown irises, a thousand excuses not to go ran through his head. His job – the good one, the one he enjoyed, and for which Coulson had stuck his neck out to return to him. His sister – who he loved very much, but who he also suspected would whack him around the head if he used her as an excuse to stay. 

Sensing his hesitancy, Jemma pushed up onto her tiptoes so she could press their foreheads together, closing her eyes as if willing her thoughts to be transferred to his. For a few moments, they just breathed each other in, one of her hands reaching up to press against his cheek. “Say yes, Fitz.”

Seagulls cawed above them, wheeling in the rose-tinted breeze.

“Yes.”

 

\------

 

_Six months later_

 

Saturday mornings were always the busiest at Grandma Triplett’s Bakery. As the most popular bakery in Harlem – perhaps, in fact, in the whole of New York City – it usually had a line of people curled around the block by half an hour before it opened. Today was no different, and Trip found himself so busy that he barely had a chance to breathe until well past noon. The store was still busy, but his two clerks were taking care of customers, and that meant he had time to check on the pastry stock.

When he turned around from the shelves to which he’d just attended, though, he caught sight of a new customer who seemed to be watching him. She was wearing a matching magenta hat and coat, brown hair curled short around her ears, and unless he was imagining things, she was smiling directly at him. Something tugged at the back of his mind, like a duty misplaced or a dream forgotten. 

“Hey there,” he said, giving her a welcoming grin and stepping forward. “How can I help you today?”

“A pastry please,” she answered, waving her hand at one of the display cases without even turning her head. “One of those.” Then, before he could move to serve her, she stuck her hand out over the counter. “I’m Skye.”

“Well, hey there, Miss Skye,” Trip said, and took her hand to shake. “My name’s Antoine, but everyone just calls me Trip.” 

“It’s swell to meet you.”

When her smile widened, her eyes seemed to shine ever-so-slightly, as if she were holding back tears. The feeling of her palm in his, delicate but with a surprising strength behind her grip, was so familiar he could almost taste the memory – sweet and ephemeral, like the powdered sugar that infused the air of the bakery.

Neither one let go of the other’s hand for a very long time.

 

\------

 

_**The End** _


End file.
